(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The prevailing high cost of living in Member States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the current status of the ACP-EU negotiations for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), are the agenda items for the Twelfth Special Conference of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to be held in Georgetown, Guyana on 7 December 2007.

The Special Conference is to be convened at the Guyana International Conference Centre at Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown.

A Caucus of CARICOM Heads of Government held on the margins of the just-concluded meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) in Kampala, Uganda, agreed that a meeting to discuss the two issues should be held in early December.

The decision to convene the meeting followed a call by Grenada Prime Minister Dr. the Rt Hon, Keith Mitchell, for a summit on high and rising food prices in the Region. Prime Minister Mitchell wrote to CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister of Barbados, the Rt. Hon. Owen Arthur earlier in November calling for the meeting of Heads of Government to discuss the soaring cost of living across Member States.

Dr Mitchell said on Friday: "I believe that this summit is one of the most important meetings of recent times. The issue we are debating affects the quality of life of all our citizens. The fisherman in Dominica is feeling the same pain as the taxi driver in St. Lucia or the small business person in Jamaica.”

He added that “although we as individual Governments can take some steps to ease the burden our people are feeling, we must recognise that this is a global issue created by international conditions. Therefore, a collective approach is needed by Caribbean Governments to combat this global issue.”

CARICOM Secretary-General His Excellency Edwin Carrington said that with the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) providing an inextricable link among the Member States, there was great benefit in the Community approaching an issue such as the rising cost of living as a unit. “It is against this background that the Bureau of Heads of Government held preliminary discussions on this matter at its meeting on 16 November in Barbados,” the Secretary-General added

The ongoing EPA negotiations with the European Union were scheduled to be concluded in time for the application of the new agreement by 1 January, 2008. The status of the EPA negotiations was the sole agenda item of the Fourth Meeting of CARIFORUM Council of Ministers held in Georgetown on 15 November 2007. The Ministers had identified Market Access - an issue which covers such subjects as free entry by the EU into the market of the CARIFORUM States and conditions of access for CARIFORUM commodities such as sugar and banana to the EU Market - as the most contentious of the outstanding issues. Proposals emerging from that meeting were submitted to the Bureau at its meeting on 16 November.

The Government of Guyana and the CARICOM Secretariat are currently working to complete arrangements for the meeting.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org