Madam Chairperson, Senator Maxine McLean, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados
Dr. the Hon Henry Jeffrey, Minister of Foreign Trade and International Cooperation of Guyana
Other Honorable Ministers
Excellencies/Ambassadors to the Caribbean Community
Other Heads of Delegation
Representatives of International and Regional Organizations
Distinguished Delegates
Invited Guests
Members of Staff of the CARICOM Secretariat
Representatives of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my pleasure to call this Twenty-Sixth Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) to order.

The Secretary-General has asked me to convey his apologies for not being here today. He is on travel duty. He sends his best greetings for a successful Meeting to all Ministers and Delegates.

Allow me to give a very special and warm welcome to our Chairperson for this Meeting, Honourable Maxine McLean who, only two days ago, was given the responsibility for her new portfolio, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade. Honourable Minister, not only is this your first Meeting of the COTED in your new capacity but, I believe, this is your very first official act as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados. I want to thank you Honorable Minister for consenting to Chair this Meeting of COTED at such very short notice. It speaks to what we can expect from the Hon. Minister. She is no stranger to the work of the Community.

Dr. the Honorable Timothy Harris, Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Industry and Commerce of St. Kitts and Nevis and the substantive Chair of COTED for the next period, has asked to convey his apologies for not being able to be here. He has had to remain at home to attend to some very urgent matters. He extends his thanks and appreciation to you Madam Chairperson.

I also want to thank Honourable Dr. Kenneth Baugh, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Jamaica, our outgoing Chairman, for his stewardship during the past year. Dr. Baugh presided over several Special Meetings of COTED on some very weighty issues such as the rising cost of living and EPA negotiations.

I want to recognize the presence of 30 students from the University of the West Indies, Institute of International Relations, accompanied by four professors. This is the third occasion on which students from the University of the West Indies have observed sessions of COTED.

Honourable Ministers, Heads of Delegations, I anticipate this meeting will be among one of the more important meetings of this Council given the agenda items and the robust discussions that our officials were engaged in over the past three days.

I daresay we meet at a challenging time. That the world is changing rapidly is no cliché; it is. The evidence can be found in the global financial and economic crisis, responses to which our Member States are now focusing. We meet at a time when there is talk of global recession and at a time when our Region is itself at a critical juncture, grappling as it is with dire warnings about our tourism industry and preparing ourselves for implementing a new trading arrangement with the European Union which effectively brings to an end preferential treatment CARICOM Member States had previously enjoyed.

Many of us can recall when in 1989 our Heads of Government at Grand Anse decided to create the CARICOM Single Market and Economy. It was also a time of challenge to our Region, as the global architecture for international trade was about to change and our major exports were under threat. Although not as severe as the current situation, the response of our Heads then was the deepening of our integration in anticipation of what was to come. Now more than ever, we need to quicken the pace of building the CSME since a Single Economy, well structured and managed, would be better able to withstand a global recession than twelve individual economies.

As Prime Minister David Thompson of Barbados acknowledged recently, we are now part of the global economy; we cannot escape its maze and we have no choice but to think globally. There are opportunities as well as threats in the current global scenario, and we must capitalize on the opportunities that present themselves, and put safeguards in place to deal with the threats.

The Community is working to solidify the CARICOM Single Market and Economy. The CSME represents a mandatory response to the changes in the global economic front and while we have made significant strides since the Single Market came into existence in 2006, much work still remains to be done. The CSME is one of the items we will consider at this Meeting. In this regard, we will receive updates from the CARICOM Development Fund and the Competition Commission, both of which became operational this year.

We will also be looking at the Free Movement of Skilled Nationals and progress towards the development of a Protocol on Contingent Rights, which are essentially the rights to which Community nationals will be entitled as they move throughout the Region to give effect to free trade in services and the right of establishment as outlined in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. These issues have had their fair share of complexities, but we are making headway; we must make headway if we are to fulfill the goals that we have set ourselves.

Our meeting also places emphasis on External Trade and Economic matters, including preparations for negotiating a CARICOM-Canada Trade and Development Agreement and the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement to which I referred earlier.

Honourable Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen, there are recurring matters on our Agenda that must be addressed in a definitive way. I urge you to deal with them in a manner that will allow us to remove them from the Agenda of future COTEDs and allow Ministers to spend more time dealing with strategic issues.

I thank you.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org