(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The recent renewal of the commitments made at the inaugural CARICOM-Brazil Summit held last April signalled that relations with CARICOM remain a foreign policy priority of Brazil under the presidency of Her Excellency Dilma Rousseff, newly-accredited Ambassador of Brazil to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), His Excellency Luiz Gilberto Seixas de Andrade said Wednesday.

In remarks at the ceremony to present his Letters of Credence to Acting Secretary-General, Amb. Lolita Applewhaite at the CARICOM Secretariat, Amb. de Andrade reflected on the “impressive set of projects” and the 64 bilateral agreements that were signed at the April 2010 Summit in Brazil. The projects covered political consultations, climate change, education and culture, agriculture, health, energy, civil defence, tourism, financing, transport and trade.

Amb. de Andrade recalled the most recent exchange of views between CARICOM Heads of Government and Brazil’s External Minister, His Excellency Antônio de Aguiar Patriota at the Twenty-Second Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government held in Grenada 25-26 February 2011. Discussions with the CARICOM Heads of Government at that meeting, he said also established a new set of cooperation projects in agriculture that he has personally committed to implement with the “indispensable and always invaluable cooperation” of the CARICOM Secretariat.

“It is a happy coincidence to be presenting this Letter of Credence in a most auspicious moment for the relations between the CARICOM and Brazil, just after the Conference of Heads of Government in Grenada, in which Minister Patriota renewed the commitments reached in the first CARICOM-Brazil summit, in April 2010. It shows that Brazil-CARICOM relations remain a foreign policy priority under the President Dilma Rousseff,” Amb de Andrade said.

The newly accredited Ambassador expressed appreciation for what he described as CARICOM’s “auspicious support” for Brazil’s candidature for the post of Director General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Amb. de Andrade paid tribute to former Secretary-General, Sir Edwin Carrington, for his role in the successful Brazil-CARICOM Summit in which he said he learned to appreciate Sir Edwin’s “numerous personal, professional and human qualities.”

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org