|
St.
George's December 1st, 2007: The prevailing high cost of
living in Member States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
and the current status of the ACP-EU negotiations for an
Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), are the agenda items
for the Twelfth Special Conference of the Heads of
Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to be held
in Georgetown, Guyana on 7 December 2007.
The Special
Conference is to be convened at the Guyana International
Conference Centre at Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown. A Caucus
of CARICOM Heads of Government held on the margins of the
just-concluded meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of
Government (CHOGM) in Kampala, Uganda, agreed that a meeting
to discuss the two issues should be held in early December.
The decision
to convene the meeting followed a call by Grenada Prime
Minister Dr. the Rt Hon, Keith Mitchell, for a summit on
high and rising food prices in the Region. Prime Minister
Mitchell wrote to CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister of
Barbados, the Rt. Hon. Owen Arthur earlier in November
calling for the meeting of Heads of Government to discuss
the soaring cost of living across Member States. Dr Mitchell
said on Friday: "I believe that this summit is one of the
most important meetings of recent times. The issue we are
debating affects the quality of life of all our citizens.
The fisherman in Dominica is feeling the same pain as the
taxi driver in St. Lucia or the small business person in
Jamaica.” He added that “although we as individual
Governments can take some steps to ease the burden our
people are feeling, we must recognise that this is a global
issue created by international conditions. Therefore, a
collective approach is needed by Caribbean Governments to
combat this global issue.”
CARICOM
Secretary-General His Excellency Edwin Carrington said that
with the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) providing
an inextricable link among the Member States, there was
great benefit in the Community approaching an issue such as
the rising cost of living as a unit. “It is against this
background that the Bureau of Heads of Government held
preliminary discussions on this matter at its meeting on 16
November in Barbados,” the Secretary-General added.
The ongoing
EPA negotiations with the European Union were scheduled to
be concluded in time for the application of the new
agreement by 1 January, 2008. The status of the EPA
negotiations was the sole agenda item of the Fourth Meeting
of CARIFORUM Council of Ministers held in Georgetown on 15
November 2007. The Ministers had identified Market Access -
an issue which covers such subjects as free entry by the EU
into the market of the CARIFORUM States and conditions of
access for CARIFORUM commodities such as sugar and banana to
the EU Market - as the most contentious of the outstanding
issues. Proposals emerging from that meeting were submitted
to the Bureau at its meeting on 16 November.
The
Government of Guyana and the CARICOM Secretariat are
currently working to complete arrangements for the meeting. |
