Honourable Ministers
Heads of Delegation
Secretary-General of CARIFORUM
Director-General CRNM
Officials of CARIFORUM States
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is my pleasure to welcome all of you to Guyana for this the Fifth Meeting of the CARIFORUM Council of Ministers. In many ways this is a unique moment.
Our meeting takes place at a time of momentous change and the highest expectations in the United States of America, the dominant country in our hemisphere, our major trading partner and which at the same time is experiencing a financial crisis of unprecedented proportions.
Our world led by the very United States is also now experiencing a financial crisis of major proportions. This and the other no less significant challenges which confront us require much global creativity.
This is also the first meeting of the Council since our signing of the CARIFORUM-EC Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), and as such our Agenda focuses on the implementation of the EPA. It is to be hoped that the difficulties we faced and the relationships we have developed during the negotiation process will be put to good use as we go forward.
By way of the Cotonou Agreement, EPAs have been proposed as not the usual trade agreements: they are intended to be developmental instruments. The realization of this vision should inform all our activities when we are dealing with EPAs and EPA-related matters. As such we are obliged to approach our discussions with the objective of implementing the EPA in a manner that maximizes the benefits from the Agreement, while not ignoring the very real challenges it presents.
If ever there is need for us to engage in serious self-examination, the time is now. Commodities which have been the backbone of CARIFORUM merchandise trade with Europe since the first Lomé Convention no longer enjoy the protection once regarded as sacrosanct. Ministers may recall that immediately after signature of the Cotonou Agreement the EC introduced Everything But Arms for LDCs which severely diminished the preferential margin of CARIFORUM countries. Now, just days after the signature of the EPA, the EC has offered the banana exporting countries of Latin America a deal that will hasten the exit of most of the CARIFORUM countries from the EC market. Our deliberations today must address our response to the EC on this important issue but we must also consider the options for transformation of the economies of our banana exporting countries.
In the globalised world of today, communities such as ours must use every opportunity to network and co-operate. Thus our agenda also has a place for a discussion on the prospects for the multilateral Doha Development Agenda negotiations. Honourable Ministers, I suspect that the global financial crisis forms part of the reasoning and the rush to conclude important modalities of the Doha Round this year. But whatever the reasoning, the fact that the Leaders of the major economies have expressed their determination to work to bring about a successful conclusion of the Doha Round, means that small players must be vigilant. We have interests to safeguard and we must ensure that we are present and prepared to do so with all the skill and political influence at our disposal.
We will also here exchange views on the initiative by our neighbour, Brazil, to bring together leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss the integration and development of the two regions. The context is threatening and extremely challenging, our time here is short and the issues complex. Again, I welcome and thank you for the honour of allowing me to guide our deliberations today.
