His Excellency the Governor-General and Mrs. Ballantyne;
Honourable Prime Minister, Dr. the Honourable Ralph Gonsalves;
Honourable Members of the Council of Ministers of the Caribbean Forum of ACP States;
>Honourable Chief Minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands;
Representatives of the European Commission;
Representatives of the Regional negotiating Machinery;
Members of the Diplomatic Corps;
Distinguished Delegates;
Distinguished Guests;
Members of the Media;
Ladies and Gentlemen;

As Secretary-General of the Caribbean Forum of ACP States, it gives me great pleasure in these brief introductory remarks to welcome you to this, the Twelfth Meeting of the Council of Ministers of CARIFORUM, in Kingstown, St Vincent and the Grenadines. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Government and People of St. Vincent and the Grenadines for the excellent arrangements which they have put in place for the series of meetings which began on Monday last, and which will culminate with the Joint CARIFORUM/European Commission Meeting tomorrow, Thursday, 24^th October.

I would also like to express our appreciation for the hard work put in by the officials over the last two days to ensure that the deliberations of this meeting are informed by sound technical advice.

This is also an opportune moment to congratulate two of our Member States, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, for their recent display of adherence to democratic principles and good governance in the conduct of their general elections. At this time, I must also extend congratulations to the winners and look forward to their countries’ continuing commitment to regional integration.

Honourable Ministers, you will recall that earlier this year, you convened a Special Meeting in April in Santo Domingo and discussed, among others, the Future of CARIFORUM; the programming of Sixth, Seventh and Eighth European Development Fund (EDF) resources; the Regional Support Strategy under the Ninth European Development Fund under the Cotonou Agreement; and the impact on the region of recent disasters.

This, our Twelfth Meeting today, is therefore the second meeting for the year and takes place against the background of a deteriorating, economic, political and military global environment – a reality we cannot afford to ignore.

Today, we will consider the progress made in respect of the decisions taken at that Special Meeting. We will also address CARIFORUM- Intra- Caribbean Relations, that is, our relations with the Overseas Countries and Territories of the United Kingdom - and here I say a special welcome to Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands - and the Netherlands, as well as with the DOMs – the Overseas Departments of France; the way in which we propose to conduct our business with the European Union in the future; and, of course, preparations for our Meeting with the European Commission tomorrow.

Against this background, the decisions we take will therefore be of vital importance to the future structure, mandate and operations of CARIFORUM and by extension, to the future of the people of the Caribbean themselves. Indeed, one of your earlier decisions, Ministers, has led to today being a red-letter day in the history of the rum industry in the Region, as the 70 million euro Rum programme, which is intended to assist regional rum producers in developing the marketing of their product, is being launched in Barbados this very day. Rum today. We look to rice tomorrow.

Of particular significance to the people of the region as well will be the outcome of the negotiations we have just commenced with the European Union for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) which are expected to guide our relations from the year 2008 onwards. And speaking of negotiations, I am not exaggerating when I say that it is already clear from the early skirmishes that the demands on us in terms of critical international negotiations – not only with the European Union, but also in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), - call for nothing less than the total commitment of us all, if we are to emerge with anything like the results which will fulfil the aspirations of our people, especially our young people.

It is certainly not a task simply for our ministerial negotiators, nor for our Regional Negotiating Machinery, nor for the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on External Negotiations, nor even for our Heads of Government. It is a task for our entire society. I therefore want to call to arms as it were, all sectors of our society, the private sector, our universities, our labour unions, our youth organisations, our women’s organisations, our religious organisations and most critically our media to join this battle to help secure our future.

These meetings in St. Vincent and the Grenadines this week are a small step toward this end.

For this reason I have great pleasure in now inviting one who is in the vanguard of this struggle - the Honourable Julian Hunte, Minister of External Affairs, International Trade and Civil Aviation of Saint Lucia and Outgoing Chairman of CARIFORUM to deliver a Statement on this occasion.

I thank you.

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