caricom

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Honourable Minister, I take this opportunity to welcome you - certainly not to your first COTED, but in your capacity as Minister for Trade of Grenada. And, of course, you have arrived in style – to take up your place as Chairman of this Council.

I also want to especially welcome the Hon. Erwin Contreras, Minister of Trade of Belize who is attending his first COTED Meeting.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) (The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) Standby Facility represents a new paradigm for collaboration between Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) States and the European Union (EU), as does the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME) Standby Facility with respect to collaboration between CARICOM States and the EU.

CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)      Ministers of Energy of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on Friday afternoon characterized a Meeting in Port of Spain, as historic, given their approval of the Regional Energy Policy that will guide the Community in its pursuit of energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The approval of the policy was the highpoint of the Forty-First Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on Energy held at the Hyatt Regency.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)     The Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Ambassador Irwin LaRocque and Director General of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Mr. José́ Graziano da Silva reviewed progress in the latter’s assistance to the Community in agriculture, specifically in the areas of food security and assistance with sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, and food and plant health.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Ambassador Irwin LaRocque deemed the Surinamese Youth programmes as a regional Best Practice.

On the second day of his official visit to Suriname, the Secretary-General was brought up to date on the activities and plans of Surinamese youth and was particularly impressed by the exciting programmes outlined to him by the CARICOM Youth Ambassadors (CYA) at a meeting in Paramaribo on Tuesday 13 December.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The regional integration movement has become stronger as a result of the relations between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Cuba.

Speaking at the Opening Ceremony of the Fourth CARICOM-Cuba Summit at the National Academy of the Performing Arts (NAPA), Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the host Prime Minister the Honourable Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the Summit was proof that the vision of the founding fathers who went to Cuba in 1972 had been fulfilled.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Cuba meet in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday 8 December, CARICOM-Cuba Day.

All independent Member States of the Community will be represented with ten at the level of Head of Government. The Cuban delegation will be led the President, His Excellency Raoul Castro Ruz.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) is well poised to undertake UNAIDS’ challenge of “Getting to Zero_ Zero Discrimination, Zero New Infections and Zero AIDS-related deaths.”

In his World AIDS Day 2011 message, The Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas, Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis and PANCAP Chair said it was his firm belief that the Caribbean through PANCAP could make the HIV pandemic a “thing of the past.”