Honourable Dean Barrow, Prime Minister of Belize and Chairman of the Conference of the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community
Your Excellencies the Presidents of Guyana and Suriname and Other Members of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community
Honourable Ministers
The Honourable Chief Justice of Belize
Members of Parliament of Belize
Members of the Diplomatic Corps
Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Dr. Jacques Diouf
The Director-General of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and other Heads of Regional Institutions
Distinguished Delegates
Distinguished Guests
Representatives of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen

Good morning to all.

As Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community, it is indeed a pleasure for me to welcome you all to this Twentieth Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community.

Permit me at the outset to thank the Government and people of Belize for the excellent hospitality and the efficient arrangements that have been put in place for this Meeting. And Mr. Chairman, I feel certain that after delegations leave this beautiful country, your Tourist Board’s designation that Belize is “Mother Nature’s Best Kept Secret” will not be much of a secret anymore. We all will have known of it.

Mr. Chairman, it is no exaggeration to say that this Meeting is being held at a time when the World is in its greatest crisis in most of our lifetimes. The economic and financial woes of the last 10 months or so have left no country unscathed and even the most optimistic observer sees no early emergence from this predicament.

In our Region, the effects are manifold and are being experienced almost on a daily basis. For example, our major industry, tourism, has been severely affected even within its most lucrative winter season period. This has led to negative spin off effects in related industries and activities, such as transportation (both air and land), handicraft creation and sales and entertainment. This in turn, has caused significant loss of employment and income for the self employed in the sector.

Our remittances are fast falling to pittances. The energy sector, including its downstream industries, has also been adversely affected as both demand and prices have plummeted. It is difficult to imagine that just seven months ago, analysts were predicting oil prices to soar to US$200 a barrel. Today they stand just over US$40 a barrel.

Further, the Regional financial sector has been severely rattled by two earthquakes – the near collapse of Colonial Life Financial and the problems of the Stanford Group. The former has significant investments and holdings throughout the Region, the latter has significant links within the Region beyond its Antigua and Barbuda base.

In the face of the crisis, action has been taken by the host governments to contain the worst of the fall out from these two enterprises, in a bid to maintain the most prized asset of any financial market – confidence. And other national governments of the Region have also been taking measures to mitigate the effects, in particular through the medium of financial and fiscal assistance to the hardest hit sectors.

As a Community, we have also not been idle. The Bureau of Heads of Government had a first look at the situation last November aided by an informative analysis from the CARICOM Secretariat and the Committee of Central Bank Governors. In December, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) convened a seminar on “The Global Financial Crisis and the Caribbean” at the end of which, a raft of suggestions were put forward to assist in responding to the crisis.

In January, the Council for Finance and Planning (COFAP) met and following a review of the measures taken within the Community to mitigate the effects of the crisis, established a Task Force under the Chairmanship of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to fashion a short and medium term strategy to enhance the policy response of the Community. That Task Force has had its First Meeting and expects to meet its deadline for reporting to a Special Meeting of the COFAP in early April. The Second Meeting is scheduled in two weeks time.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, if anything this period in global history has underscored for us in this Region is the absolute urgency for this Community to have the capacity to act and indeed to so act as one entity in such instances. In moving towards a Single Market and Economy, the instances of Pan CARICOM enterprise demand a Pan CARICOM regulatory jurisdiction. A CARICOM Single Market and Economy cannot be governed and regulated by national instruments and institutions alone.

Mr. Chairman, Heads of Government, Ladies and Gentlemen, our integration movement should, however, not be perceived only in terms of its capacity for crisis prevention or mitigation. There is much to commend it in its capacity for development and viability. In that regard, the focus at this Meeting on Sustainable Development as well, is one critical area in which concerted Community action on the global stage can be of great benefit to us as a Region and to the wider global Community.

Sustainable Development includes an array of elements which all affect the viability of our society. These include but are not limited to climate change, renewable energy, preservation of our forests and wetlands and water security. His Excellency the President of Guyana has been a most forceful advocate internationally with particular emphasis on forest preservation – or as it is called Avoided Deforestation. For this initiative, he must be greatly commended. However, his voice must not be the only one to be heard from this Region as we seek to encourage those whose actions create the emissions that are the root cause of the Climate Change phenomenon to offset the costs that are incurred by those of us who most feel its effects.

This charge becomes more urgent this year in the months preceding the Fifteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009. The Community, through Grenada, is in the pivotal position of Chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) as that Group seeks to ensure that its positions are part of the agreed global policy on Climate Change which emerges from Copenhagen. It is incumbent upon our Member States to make full use of this strategic positioning.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, this Community continues to seek opportunities for growth and development and to promote possibilities of prosperity for its peoples. The Heads of Government will over the next two days, pay close attention to the way forward in the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), signed last October between the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) States (CARIFORUM) and the European Community (EC) and to the negotiation of a Trade and Development Agreement with Canada. The reality of such new global trading arrangements with these two major global players, presents opportunities for expansion and diversification of our economies and represent a challenge to the entrepreneurs in our midst, to seek out and exploit the fresh prospects they bring.

New challenges and fresh prospects also confront the Community when in just over a month, the Government and People of Trinidad and Tobago, on behalf of the Community, host the Fifth Summit of the Americas which brings together 34 countries of the Hemisphere. This Summit will provide a unique and unprecedented opportunity for the small states of our Region to advance our concerns and interests in this hemisphere, on home soil as it were. I am sure that all our Member States will participate as fully as they can, not only in the Summit itself but also in the preparatory sessions, particularly those related to the final declaration.

Distinguished Heads of Government and Heads of Delegation, in closing, in light of all the above, it is fair to say that the outcome of your deliberations here over the next two days has the potential to create a significant impact, not only throughout our Community but on the wider hemispheric and global plane. It is with this sobering thought that I thank you for your attention and invite the Chairman of the Community, the Honourable Dean Barrow, Prime Minister of Belize, to whom I extend the warmest congratulations on his assumption to the Chairmanship of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Community, to address us.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org