Mr Chairman, the Honourable Karl Samuda, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Jamaica
Dr the Honourable Henry Jeffrey, Minister of Foreign Trade and International Co-operation of Guyana
Other Honourable Ministers
Distinguished Delegates
Representatives of Regional Bodies
Assistant Secretaries-General and Staff of the Secretariat
Representatives of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen

I happily join the Hon. Minister of Guyana in extending a warm welcome to you all to this the Twenty-Fifth Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED). I am particularly pleased to welcome those Ministers who are attending their first COTED meeting and in this regard, I wish to extend a special welcome to Dr the Honourable Keith Rowley Minister of Trade and Industry. To you all I extend best wishes for a most productive 2008.

Mr Chairman, in a press statement issued earlier this month, I indicated that the Caribbean Community would be off to a flying start for 2008. These first three weeks have certainly lived up to that billing.

Already the Caribbean Regional Information and Translation Institute (CRITI) and the CARICOM Competition Commission(CCC) have been launched; the Task Force on Functional Co-operation - established by Heads of Government in 2006 - has met with the Secretariat and submitted its draft report; the Technical Team established by the Heads of Government at their Twelfth Special Meeting held here in Guyana on 7 December to make proposals aimed at reducing the cost of living in the Community, met earlier this week to make recommendations to this Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development. Also, only yesterday, a Joint Meeting of the COTED and the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) took place in this very hall.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, Officials met in preparation for this Ministerial session today.

This exhausting schedule shows no sign of slackening as we approach the Inter-sessional meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government to be held in The Bahamas on 7 and 8 March. This Meeting of the Conference will be preceded by a Meeting of the Community Council on 8 February also here in Guyana.

Mr. Chairman, one of the key issues that Heads of Government will no doubt be reviewing at their Inter-Sessional Meeting, is that of Poverty and the Rising Cost of Living. In this regard, you may recall Honourable Ministers, that at their Special Meeting in December last, the Heads of Government took the following position and I quote:

“We have therefore agreed to immediately establish a Technical Team which will review a set of commodities which have a significant weight in the Consumer Price Index, are not significantly produced or have a close substitute in the Region, and which attract a CET. The Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) will then make a decision on the reduction or removal of the CET from these commodities as early as 31 January 2008.”

The Technical Team met earlier this week on Monday and their recommendations are before the Council today.

Distinguished Delegates, ladies and gentlemen, as indicated earlier, the CARICOM Competition Commission was launched earlier this month. This important component of the CSME architecture was inaugurated on Friday 18 January at a formal ceremony at the Headquarters of the Commission, in Paramaribo, Suriname.

An important part of the Ceremony was the swearing in of its seven Commissioners who will serve for the first five years of the Commission. These distinguished ladies and gentlemen are:

Dr. Kusha Haraksingh of Trinidad and Tobago - Chairman
Mr. Patterson Cheltenham, Q.C. of Barbados
Dr. Trevor Farrell of Trinidad and Tobago
Mr. Hans Lim A Po of Suriname
Dr. Maureen Paul of Dominica
Dr. Barton Scotland of Guyana, and
Ambassador Stewart Stephenson of Jamaica.

While the seven Commissioners are ready and anxious to take up their duties, there are still two important matters to be dealt with. One is the budget of the Commission. In this regard, some Member States have not fully met their obligations to contribute to the first year’s annual operating costs of the Commission.

The second matter concerns the exercise of the powers granted to the Commission in the Revised Treaty. Those powers enable it to act not only region-wide but also within individual Member States.

To fully function in this regard, however, Member States must enact the relevant competition law. Many Member States are still to fulfil this requirement.

I call on those Member States which have not yet fulfilled their obligations to the Commission, to do without further delay.

Distinguished Ministers, the issue of External Trade and Economic Relations, figures prominently on your agenda. Of critical importance in this regard, is the Region’s agenda for future external trade negotiations. As you are aware, a little more than one month ago, on 16 December 2007, as Members of the Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States (CARIFORUM), we concluded negotiations with the European Union for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). That Agreement, inter alia, heralds the end of the non-reciprocal preferential trade relationship we have had with Europe since 1975.

This Council has called for reflection on the process of preparation and approach to future external trade negotiations in order to inform the Region's strategy for the anticipated bilateral trade negotiations now under consideration. To that end, the COTED took the decision that an independent review be undertaken of the EPA negotiations and the outcome be considered by a Reflections Group comprising Senior Officials of Member States, the CARICOM and OECS Secretariats, the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery and stakeholders from across the Community.

The Secretariat has taken action in keeping with this mandate from the Council and it is proposed to convene a Special Meeting of the COTED on External Trade Negotiations in Guyana on 28-29 February to receive the recommendations of the Reflections Group.

Bilateral trade and economic arrangements including those which are now under consideration, have significant implications not only for the development of the economies of individual Member States but also for the development of the CSME.

One obvious implication, is the absolute imperative to greatly enhance the competitiveness of our economies. To this end, we need, inter alia, to accelerate the process of operationalising the CARICOM Development Fund including the Regional Development Agency. Of immediate necessity in this regard, is the need for Member States to meet their obligations to the Fund.

Hon Ministers, Distinguished Delegates, in addition to the customary intra-regional trade issues – the bread and butter issues as we say sometimes - this meeting has on its agenda other important issues such as the use of Information and Communications Technology as a catalyst for development; institutional building for private sector service providers; and agreement on standards for regional products.

Honourable Ministers, these matters are all of primordial importance to our Region. The People of the Community look forward to the results of your collective wisdom.

I thank you.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org