(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) I extend a warm welcome to you all to this the Thirty-Fourth Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED). In extending this welcome, I do so specially to the Honourable Arnaldo Brown, Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Jamaica, Honourable Alva Baptiste, Minister of External Affairs, International Trade and Civil Aviation and the Honourable Emma Hippolyte, Minister of Commerce, Business Development, Investment and Consumer Affairs both of Saint Lucia. Welcome Ministers to your first Meeting of this Council. We look forward to your full engagement on the issues before the Council over the next two days and beyond.
Ministers, Delegates, this COTED is happening at a time when the entire Community is in a mode of reform and change as we seek to make a more meaningful impact on the lives of the people of the Region. These changes and reforms are designed to bring about a more effective, efficient and dynamic Community and Secretariat in order to deliver on the promise of creating a Community for All.
The impatience of our citizens to enjoy the benefits of integration should serve as an impetus for us to ensure, for example, that we resolve urgently the outstanding issues that hinder Community nationals, including the private sector, from taking full advantage of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). These issues affect not only daily lives and day-to- day operations but also the public perception of inertia and slothfulness engulfing the integration movement.
An issue that has occupied the time of this Council in recent years relates, in one way or another, to the operation of the Common External Tariff (CET). The Caribbean Court of Justice has made judgements and pronouncements on specific matters that impinge on the overall operation of the CET. We must recognise that we are operating in a rules-based environment, as enshrined in the various provisions of the Revised Treaty and as interpreted by the CCJ. To some extent, that is new territory for the manner in which the COTED conducts its affairs. However, the framers of the Treaty, I am sure, must have intended that this Council would be enabled to legitimately manage the regimes under its control in seeking to achieve the objectives of the Community. It is not beyond the capacity of this Council to find creative solutions to some of these problems, while keeping within the four corners of the Treaty.
Let us move swiftly to consolidate and strengthen our Single Market and Economy as it is critical that we collectively engage the global market, particularly in these stringent times. Even as we continue to fight to ensure that the international community takes account of our special and vulnerable circumstances, we have to put our own house in order.
The need for this becomes all the more apparent as we continue to move ahead with the negotiations for the conclusion of a Trade and Development Agreement with Canada and have commenced our preparations for re-engaging the Dominican Republic on the implementation of the CARICOM-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement.
Further, the Trade and Investment Council (TIC) with the United States, which has been dormant for some time, will be meeting here in Georgetown on Saturday at a point when our exports to the US under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and its related Acts are being threatened. This Meeting of the TIC represents a timely re-engagement between CARICOM and the US.
Ministers, Delegates, as we meet to consider these regional and international issues, let us approach our discussions in the spirit of Community. I wish us all a fruitful and productive Meeting.
I thank you.
