ECONOMIC and Trade Relations will be among the issues to be discussed at the Fifth Summit of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Cuba.The meeting takes place in Havana, Cuba on today, December 8.
In accordance with the Havana Declaration of December 2002, the Summit is held every three years on the date that the leaders of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago broke a diplomatic embargo and visited Cuba.
To this end, the date, December 8, has been designated CARICOM-Cuba Day.
Today’s meeting will give the leaders an opportunity to look at the present situation with the Trade and Economic Agreement which the two parties signed in 2000. They will benefit from the result of discussions held last October in Havana by the CARICOM-Cuba Joint Commission, which sought ways of making the Agreement more effective.
The two sides will also discuss strengthening co-operation in multi-lateral fora. This assumes added importance in light of the on-going global negotiations for a Climate Change Agreement and the upcoming negotiations on the United Nations Post- 2015 Development Agenda.
Chairman of CARICOM, the Honourable Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda; His Excellency Raoul Castro Ruz, President of Cuba and His Excellency Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, Secretary-General of CARICOM will address Monday’s opening ceremony at the Place of the Revolution.
The Summit was preceded yesterday by a meeting of the foreign ministers.