The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretary General Mr Edwin Carrington will preside over a plenary session at the Annual Miami Conference on the Caribbean and Latin America 1998 entitled "Europe and the Americas Beyond 2000".

The session takes place on Friday December 11, 1998 from 9.00 a.m at the Chopin Room of the Inter-Continental Hotel, Miami, Florida, USA. Feature speaker at the session will be the Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Rt Hon P. J. Patterson.

The conference, organised by the Caribbean/Latin American Action (C/LAA), is in its 22^nd year and has its theme, "Business in the Hemisphere - From Talk to Action". It will take place from December 8-12.

On December 10, Secretary-General Carrington will participate in a breakfast session organised by the Government of the Dominican Republic to discuss the forthcoming Caribbean/US Trade and Investment Forum to be held in Santo Domingo in March 1999. The Forum emerged out of the 1997 Caribbean/US Summit held in Bridgetown, Barbados.

From Miami, Mr Carrington will proceed to Mexico where he will attend Meetings of the Latin America and Caribbean Preparatory Committees for the European Union/Latin American/ Caribbean Summit. The Summit is scheduled for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 28-29 June 1999.

The Mexico City meetings will take place from December 15-17 and will be the final in the series before the Latin American/Caribbean group begin pre-summit negotiations with the Europeans in January, 1999.