Issues of mutual interest and areas for cooperation will be explored when high level delegations from the Caribbean Community Secretariat (CARICOM) and the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) meet in Guyana on Monday 3 April, 2000.
The Meeting comes at the invitation of the CARICOM Secretary-General Mr Edwin Carrington who will head the CARICOM delegation. The newly appointed Secretary-General of the ACS Professor Norman Girvan will lead the ACS team.
At the one-day meeting, both sides will examine ways in which the two Secretariats can jointly promote their respective Work Programmes. At its establishment in 1994, it was expected that the ACS Secretariat would be supported in the execution of its work by other regional organisations including the CARICOM Secretariat. Article15 of the ACS Convention gives effect to this understanding. A Special Agreement between CARICOM and the ACS was signed in 1997.
This will be the first meeting between the Secretariats since the ACS was established four years ago.
The one-day Meeting is expected to yield much with officials focusing their attention on possible areas of cooperation in trade, tourism and transport, protection and management of the environment and culture. In the area of trade, discussions are likely to be focused on cooperation in the Conduct of Policy Studies, the facilitating of Intra-Regional Trade and the Caribbean Preferential Tariff.
Issues pertaining to sustainable tourism development, environment and the Caribbean Sea, and facilitating the Intra-regional movement of goods and people are also expected to be discussed. In the area of cultural cooperation, issues in education, linguistic Integration and Plans for CARIFESTA Vll are tabled for discussion.
Both sides are also expected to examine a proposal for inter-agency meetings on institutional cooperation involving other ACS-wide regional institutions and examine ways of promoting Intra- Caribbean cooperation on international issues of mutual interest.
While in Guyana the ACS Secretary-General will also make a number of courtesy calls on government and private sector officials.
