On behalf of the Italian Government, I would like to express our appreciation and gratitude for this invitation and thank to all organizers, the host country, our partners from the Caribbean, FAO (DG) and CARICOM (SG), with a kind salute to the attendants I have known for so long, from the time when I was living in this beautiful country. Particularly, I should like to thank President Jagdeo for his efforts in stressing the importance of the Agriculture sector in the Region. Our own Prime Minister, Mr. Romano Prodi, felt that it would be very important for Italy to be here, and being our National Day, I am pleased to celebrate it in sharing this moment with you.

With CARICOM and FAO we have been working as partners for the past four years in the framework of the Project “Promoting CARIFORUM/CARICOM Food Security”, and due to its important achievements and need for fostering the involvement of the private sector and actively promoting communication, we would like to reaffirm our commitment to Food Security and make the pledge of €2M for phase II of the Project.

In fact, in relation with and in the framework of the Food Security Project, several converging analysis have identified key areas in which further efforts are needed. Italy’s creativity and experience in developing small agro-processing enterprise - thanks to an horizontal full-sharing information mechanism - through continued participation within the institutional framework, can build on the strong base provided by Phase I’s achievements. Italy has made a significant contribution in improving international food quality and safety standards, and is the European leader in organic production with a high percentage of export to EU, markets and worldwide.

The Italian agro–food system – based on horizontal full exchange of information - seems to have therefore a high potential to contribute to the strengthening of Caribbean agribusiness as a complement to fast food (we developed healthy fast food as well) and its health hazards, in contributing to the increasing the volume of fresh and processed eco-friendly quality-food that could be supplied to the tourism industry and niche (or global) markets, with a matter of convincing the population to shift towards more appealing food. And this because Italy and the Caribbean are, in many ways, closer than one might think: we share inconstant earth behaviour and the sea with our hundred islands, multiethnic mosaics, the arts, the art of cooking, many tastes from our multifaceted traditions.

We see our commitment to this Project as an overall commitment from our Government to Regional Integration in the Caribbean through CARICOM, as in the overall Region : we support Mercosur in South America and the Central American Integration Systems in several ways.

Within the priorities for Development Cooperation as set out by our Government early this year, is the promotion of the environment, bio-diversity, food sovereignty both through organic (and non organic) agriculture, health and education, the importance of gender issues, adding to, in the Region where our Technical Cooperation Office operates, the utmost issue : Youth. We would like to see more young people and women involved in the agricultural sector, we would like to listen to them, as we shall be listening more to the private sector. We must look upon Agriculture in the Caribbean as an engaging, an appealing activity, with opportunities for a better life, in an historical moment in which we want to work close to our Caribbean partners in search for new paths.

In this endeavour, and with them, we are ready to liaise with willing institutions and donors present today, and I thank you for your attention.