President Ramotar calls for common database for Caribbean, Latin America

PRESIDENT Donald Ramotar has called for the establishment of a common database for the 33-member Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (CELAC) for analytical purposes, rather than having individual countries do it on their own.
He made the call Wednesday while addressing fellow Heads at the CELAC summit, the second to date, held this time around in Havana, Cuba. The first was held in December, 2011 in Caracas, Venezuela.
The rationale for pooling data, he said, is that doing so “can help us cheapen the cost of doing business; make it easier for us to deal with, apply and know each other’s technologies and strengths, so that we can have proper transfer in this regard.”
As to the importance of infrastructure to bridging the integration gap, President Ramotar said the region, having taking this into account, is “moving more and more into the direction of more air flights, and new ports and roads and other important infrastructure,” all of which will help strengthen the region’s economic links as well.

More economic links
Touching on the issue of inequality, which was one of the hot topics at the Summit, President Ramotar said the way to go is to establish even more economic links.
He justified his argument by pointing out that though South and Central America have enormous possibilities where food production is concerned, yet still the Caribbean has a total food import bill of $4B annually, which monies could well be saved by simply cashing in on the existing food producing opportunities in the region.
“We have to look at how we help each other, in a neutral way, to build up the weaker States, so that we can make integration meaningful, and our people can appreciate it,” President Ramotar said.
And while on the subject of integration, he seized the opportunity to urge his CELAC counterparts to ensure that the voices of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean are heard, as a bloc, on important global issues, so as to make a stronger impact.

Financial institutions
With reference to the international financial and economic crises that rocked the economies of many CELAC countries, President Ramotar chided fellow Heads for going back on promises they had made back then, reminding them that at the height of the situation in 2008, there was talk about the need for better control and regulation of large financial institutions, the lack of which contributed significantly to the crisis in the first place.
“Now that the crisis seems to have eased, no one is talking about the need for that regulation anymore, and we are once again back to business as usual…” he said, adding:
“ We need to have a common position on some of these things… I think our CELAC should make its voice heard on this issue, because even though we are not responsible for the crisis, many of our countries are still feeling those effects.”

Solidarity
He shared the view that Latin America and the Caribbean must stand firm in solidarity, and denounce what has been happening in Palestine.
“We must also make our voices heard on the kind of colonialism and oppression that exist in Palestine today, because any way in which colonialism can be weakened will help us in our own struggle. What is taking place in Palestine today is a blotch on humanity’s conscience,” he stated.

(GINA)