Welcome again to the smallest country to host this Region's greatest exposition of Arts and Culture! This reference to our size is not an excuse by any means ... please feel free to consider it a boast that small as we are... our pride and joy at having you here cannot be surpassed. Over the next ten days, you will find yourselves immersed in activities designed to make you proud of yourselves as people of the Caribbean, activities that are educational, culturally stimulating, and highly enriching. Thank you for coming.

The melange of stunningly beautiful twin islands and the intoxicating richness of our region's diverse cultural heritage, embraced and showcased over ten days of colour and creativity in all its forms is almost too much to savour in one sitting! But that is exactly what you are about to experience from today, 17^th until 26^th August, during the staging here of the Seventh Caribbean Festival of Arts.

As a nation, we are rightly proud to host this cultural event, an understanding of significant scope even for those countries which are possessed of more ample portions of human, financial and other resources. We could hardly, however, be more possessed of the will to make this a success not only for ourselves, but for and on behalf of the entire Caribbean and its diaspora. The outpouring of support from the countries of the Region has been gratifying, and the investment on this occasion by corporate benefactors who have joined in this promotion of our arts and culture must be highly applauded. I am therefore very pleased to salute all participating artists and the countries they represent, and to express profound thanks to all our sponsors for their wise and timely investment in our artists, our Caribbean, our culture.

I especially want to recognise the pivotal role of this Region's artists to the very survival of our culture, and to applaud their energy and their generosity of spirit which combine to make every CARIFESTA a mecca for artistic souls, where the potency of the creative electricity is palpable. I think we can all feel already that something powerful is happening here for the Region. Thank you in a very special way, artists. This Festival, like every other CARIFESTA, is for and about you ... and all that you symbolise for the Region. I encourage you all to use this occasion to teach and to learn, to give and to receive, to inspire and to gain inspiration from all around you. And please be sure to make every CARIFESTA moment here count towards your fullest possible artistic and personal growth and development.

As an artist myself, and as Minister of Culture, I challenge the Caribbean Community to broaden the reach of this awesome cultural outpouring and to truly take CARIFESTA beyond the stage of one major event over one period in one place ... to the point where it is made more accessible to our peoples through a process that affords greater participation leading up to its final explosion in the cultural bliss we have come to call CARIFESTA ! The celebration of ourselves as a people, the latent desire within us all to give life to our artistic urgings, should be provided every scope to blossom and bear fruit on a more regular basis. ,Let CARIFESTA, therefore, grow beyond event to process, and let our people's thirst to be regularly drenched by the Region's creative energies be fully satiated.

As the Caribbean Sea splashed our shores from time immemorial... as its depth and breadth extend to touch our lands and make us one people, so let us continue to preserve that which instinctively defines us and makes us one family: Our Culture. And let us resolve to do so even as we embrace the theme of this Seventh Caribbean Festival of Arts : Caribbean Arts and Culture ...Reflecting, Consolidating, Moving On!

Thank you once again. Enjoy CARIFESTA VII.