Your Excellency the President of Guyana,
Your Excellency the Vice-President of Costa Rica;
Hon. Prime Minister of Guyana;
Honourable Ministers of CARICOM, Central America and the Dominican Republic;
Distinguished Secretaries-General;
Delegates;
Members of the Diplomatic Corps;
Distinguished Guests;
Members of the Media;
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It was in San Pedro Sula, in Honduras in 1992 that Foreign Ministers of CARICOM and Central America initiated the process of inter-regional cooperation, in pursuance of a vision advocate by the late Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica and the then President Rafael Callejas of Honduras. The central thrust of the cooperation between the two sub-regions aims at the improvement of their economic and social systems and the strengthening of the democratic process.
Today, Ministers of the two Sub-regions are meeting for their fourth session, having met since that inaugural session in San Pedro Sula, both in Kingston, Jamaica in May 1993 and in San Jose, Costa Rica in November 1996. Much has changed since that San Pedro Sula meeting, resulting in a greater awareness between us of each other’s interests and the development of a strong bond of neighbourliness. Increasingly apparent from our growing relationship, is the mutual recognition of the many commonalities we share, ranging from the very prospects for our development, to from our shared cultural origins, to the many natural disasters which befall us.
Also, the relationship which our two regions have been establishing in the course of this decade is reflecting itself not only in greater consultation and international cooperation, but in increasing commercial ties, as reflected in the growth in the value of CARICOM-Central America trade, by approximately one and a half times between 1992 and 1997 (from US$ 56.9 M to US$ 139.4 M).
Your Excellencies, Honourable Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen, as we approach the new century, the time is certainly upon us to intensify the relationship between our two Sub-Regions. We can no longer, for example, fail to discuss among ourselves the issue of bananas, nor allow to lie fallow the very valuable proposal of the Dominican Republic for the creation of a Strategic Alliance between our two Sub-regions. We must work together to ensure a place for us, the smaller economies of the hemisphere, in the Free Trade Area of the Americas process. Most of all, we can no longer afford to allow our future generations to be strangers to each other.
But my task this morning, is not to address you, but to chair this opening session of the Fourth CARICOM – Central America Ministerial Meeting and, to that end, I now have great pleasure in inviting the Honourable Erroll Snijders, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Suriname and Chairman of CARICOM’s Council for Foreign and Community Relations to address us.
