Her Excellency Mrs. Janet Jagan, President of the Republic of the Republic of Guyana.
His Excellence Mr. Errol Snijders, Foreign Affairs Minister of the Republic of Suriname, Co-Chairman of the Fourth Ministerial Meeting,
Esteemed Heads of Delegations of the member countries of the Caribbean Community,
Esteemed Heads of the Delegations of the countries of Central America and the Dominican Republic,
Honourable General Secretaries of CARICOM and SICA,
Special guests of international and regional organizations,
Distinguish delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is an honour for me and my colleagues of Central America to be here in this beautiful land of Guyana, “Land of Many Waters”, taking part in this Fourth Ministerial Meeting, between Central America and the Community of the Nations of the Caribbean.
First of all, I would like to express our sincerest thanks to our gracious host, Her Excellence Mrs. Janet Jagan, President of the Republic of Guyana for the honour of having her with us this morning, and for the warm hospitality that has been extended to us here.
Seven years have passed since our first meeting in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. On that occasion, we agreed to establish a mechanism of cooperation between our two regions and to pursue further ministerial Meetings in order to strengthen even more the links between the two regions, which are united by numerous historical links and by our common belonging to our Great Caribbean Region.
Today, we are advancing our great undertaking, we have advanced and deepened our ties, demonstrating that when small people unite, we will inevitably become great. We must take advantage of every opportunity to have greater influence on the global agenda, the concerns of small economies must be duly taken into account in an appropriate manner in all political, economic and commercial arenas.
We find ourselves today at the portals of a new century and we continue to share the same challenges, dreams and hopes, ideals and utopias which inspire in our people a sense of belonging and hope for the future.
Central America and CARICOM find themselves in a new era, one which offers enormous potential for each and every one of our peoples living in one of the most beautiful regions of the world, a region full of promise, the Caribbean Basin.
Nevertheless, in this era of globalization, both regions are facing the challenges imposed on us by multiple and intense world-wide transformations. We therefore should work together to ensure a globalization without exclusions, where our countries can be the master builders of globalization and not merely labourers in the process.
Within this context, our meeting today has a special importance because it represents a common effort to analyze together how to equip ourselves to enter the flow of international currents, how best to answer the political, social, economic and trading challenges.
As small economies, we should protect our interests in these areas, coordinating efforts and developing consensus positions on issues of common interest, through flexible mechanisms for coordination, cooperation and follow up, in order to enhance our capacity to provide appropriate responses to our needs and the expectations of our peoples.
To achieve our objectives, we should take concrete steps in our regional understanding and in uniting our will and common actions, in the framework of a distinctive vision of our development, based in the enormous potential that our countries possess, which undoubtedly is founded in our people and in our environment.
I should like to underline one area in particular in which our countries have an accumulated experience which unites us and which should be translated into an important point of encounter and of endeavour between our two regions.
We are countries vulnerable to the whims of nature and now more than ever we have before us the evidence of the latent menace to our environment as a result of global warming and the indiscriminate and irrational use of natural resources.
Only last year, a large sector of the countries of Central America and the Caribbean suffered the devastation caused by the passage of Hurricanes Georges and Mitch which resulted in the loss of many lives as well as major damage to agriculture and infrastructure, seriously impacting our economies.
These difficult times in which we live lead us to a greater awareness of the pressing need to unite our efforts in these common areas, to define common strategies for sustainable development which imply initiatives for implementation which will help us to mitigate the adverse effects of these natural phenomena.
In the same context, we are in agreement on the importance which the preservation and protection of our common patrimony, the Caribbean Sea has for the entire region.
We therefore look forward to fruitful exchanges in the context of this ministerial meeting which will help us to define together integrated policies of development so as to harmoniously combine the search for better standards of living for our peoples with the protection of the environment.
The Caribbean and Central America have the joint responsibility for peacefully and productively living together in this Caribbean Basin region.
Central America regards with optimism the course being taken in the relations between the Caribbean and our subregion and we hope that this meeting will be one more encounter in which we can strengthen our points of convergence and increase our exchanges so as to construct more and stronger bridges of union between our two subregions.
Thank you very much.
