(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Trade, Investment, Tourism and Cooperation will feature prominently when Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Mexico meet in Barbados on Monday 21 May for their second Summit. The first was held in Mexico in 2010.
Monday’s Summit will be preceded by a meeting of the CARICOM-Mexico Joint Commission on Saturday and a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of both sides on Sunday. Mexico was the first country to form a Joint Commission with the Community having signed the agreement in 1974.
The CARICOM leaders will also take the opportunity to impress upon the Mexican President His Excellency Felipe Calderon the importance of Mexico continuing to advocate on the Community’s behalf with respect to reform of the International Financial Institutions (IFI) at a meeting of the G20 which Mexico will be hosting next June. CARICOM Heads of Government at a short meeting with President Calderon in Cartagena last month during the Sixth Summit of the Americas expressed their concerns since many CARICOM Member States are classified as Small Highly Indebted Middle Income Countries and are prohibited from access to the more concessional facilities and instruments from the IFIs.
Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM, His Excellency Desire Bouterse, President of Suriname, Mexican President and CARICOM Secretary-General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque will address the opening ceremony of the Summit at the Barbados Hilton from 10.30 a.m.
Relations between CARICOM and Mexico are based on an agreement signed in Kingston, Jamaica in 1974, whose objective is to identify and promote cooperation initiatives in order to enlarge economic, political and cultural relations.
This was advanced in 2009 during the Fifth Meeting of the Joint Commission when both sides signed a declaration in which they expressed their commitment to promote cooperation in areas such as trade and investment, air and maritime transport, financial services, security, health, energy and climate change.
