Right Now, the collective technical might of the Government of Belize is all down on the Placencia Peninsula for the 27th Inter-Sessional Meeting of The Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
As we told you earlier, Belize took over the interim chairmanship of CARICOM, and right now, Prime Minister Dean Barrow is heading all sessions. He's currently the keynote speaker in the opening ceremony which should start sometime tonight at the Placencia Hotel.
Our news team is there for that ceremony, and we'll have highlights of tonight's event for you in tomorrow's newscast. But, just before the ceremony started, our Daniel Ortiz spoke with Elsworth John, the St. Vincent and the Grenadines' Ambassador to CARICOM, who also serves as Head of the Regional Integration and Diaspora Unit. He told us that the CARICOM Finance Ministers hit the ground running with the itinerary delve right into the issue of de-risking, which all the CARICOM nations face since the tier 1 American Banks are terminating the corresponding banking relationships with banking institutions all across the Caribbean. Here's that interview with the Ambassador:
Elsworth John, Ambassador to CARICOM - St. Vincent and the Grenadines'
"Today we had a meeting of the finance ministers this morning to deal with some issues related to banking. As you know this evening at the official opening where there will be speeches from various heads of government outgoing and coming. Tomorrow we get down to the business of the community and there are a number of issues that would be discussed over the next two days that are of importance to the region. I don't want to get into details on any of the specific subjects, but just to say that this meeting that is held - we have two meeting of the heads of government every year and there are the occasions when the policy issues affecting the community are dealt with."
Daniel Ortiz
"You mentioned the meeting of the finance ministers. Is the de-risking issue something that the rest of the Caribbean is facing and was that discussed today?"
Elsworth John, Ambassador to CARICOM - St. Vincent and the Grenadines'
"I think that was the issue as you probably already know and it is something that would affect all the countries in the region. It is something that we have taken very seriously. Belize has a very important role to play. The Chairman of CARICOM of the community is the Prime Minister of Belize. So he is right now the spoke person on issues related to the Caribbean Community. The meetings of the community are usually held in the member state that holds the chairmanship as is the case now with Belize. So we are all excited about coming down to this part of our community for this meeting."
Daniel Ortiz
"That issue of the de-risking that is facing the rest of the Caribbean as well. How serious is it in other parts of the CARICOM jurisdictions? Because we know in Belize its a very serious issue that our people are watching carefully."
Elsworth John, Ambassador to CARICOM - St. Vincent and the Grenadines'
"The situation is the same at all our member states. It's not something that is unique to Belize. What you will find is that most of the risk that are inherent to Belize is also inherent to other Caribbean countries and that's one of the reasons why we have been taking a collaborative approach to issues."
We understand that the Prime Minister's Representative for today's Finance Meeting was the Governor of the Central Bank of Belize, Glen Isaguirre. Our information is that coming out of that meeting, all the Finance Ministers have agreed to approach the UN as a collective to make a presentation.
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