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Officials from Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago are participating in the talks which started Monday and concludes Friday. According to a press release issued by the CARICOM Secretariat here in Georgetown, the assistance package, which falls under the Singapore Co-operation Programme (SCP), has benefitted nearly 1,300 officials from the participating nations and more are expected to benefit over the next three years.
“We (the Singapore Government) will also give out a number of post-grad scholarships for CARICOM officials admitted into Singapore universities,” Singapore’s Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam is quoted as saying,
He adds: “We will also explore how we can enhance our partnership with the CARICOM Secretariat to jointly organise capacity-building programmes.”
Growing ties
Shanmugam, who hosted the visitors, welcomed the unprecedented exchange between Singapore and the CARICOM bloc and said that economic and political ties between the two sides have been growing since 1971.
He noted that relations had been invaluable in finding common ground on bilateral and global issues.
Pointing out that Singapore and the CARICOM nations share a feature of being small states, the minister said by working collectively, both sides have been able to present a louder voice on global issues in the international community.
A Voice
CARICOM is looking to Singapore, the world’s fourth largest financial centre, to make representation on its behalf in the more exclusive international forums, particularly at the G-20, the release said.
The G-20, also known as the Group of Twenty, brings together top financial policy makers from twenty of the world’s major economies for decision making on the international financial system.
According to the release, CARICOM Secretary-General, Ambassador, Irwin La Rocque, who is among the delegation, stated that a lot of the financial decisions taken at the G-20 have reference to small States.
“A lot of the economic fallout that took place in 2008 and 2009 started in the developed world, though the biggest impact has been on the small economies,” he observed.
La Rocque said: “We (CARICOM nations) need a voice to put forward our peculiar challenges and what Singapore is doing, to facilitate that, is welcome.”
A bilateral discourse between Barbados and Singapore also took place and the former, reportedly, signed an Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreement with the Singaporeans to facilitate greater trade and investment opportunities for the two sides.
The Eastern Caribbean nation indicated that an air services pact between the two is also due to be inked this week.
