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CARICOM SG Lays Out Agenda
posted (February 16, 2016)
That was last night, and early this morning, the delegates and ambassadors showed up for the real work to start at the plenary sessions.

The heads of Government moved from one meeting to the next, with hardly any breaks in between, and we understand the last meeting is still going on right now.

Before diving into the day's activities, the Secretary General of CARICOM, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, sat down with the press for a short briefing on what is supposed to happen over the next 2 days:

Ambassador Irwin LaRocque - Secretary General, CARICOM
"I think everything is well in place. We had a good opening ceremony last night. You saw the 3 speeches, in particular that of our chairman and Prime Minister Dean Barrow and our outgoing chairman Prime Minister Stuart and the tone has been set for the discussions that will take place today. The formal sessions of the meeting, the discussions actually will start in the next few minutes and of course at that point we will go through the agenda. In my briefings with the Prime Minister I think we are well set to have a good discussion and a few very critical issues of interest to the community. There are a number of important issues which we will be discussing and you would have heard from statements last night corresponding banking and the impact it's been having on our economy is a very important one - a very critical one for us to address and security is another one. The issue of crime and security which is impacting again all our member states. The Zika virus, yet again another one. This threat on our public health is something we need to address collectively. There are a few other items which are of interest; the border issues which we must discuss and come to some common position how we go forward. The issue on the applications for associate membership. There are 6 territories that have applied for associate membership. There is a technical group that has been established by heads of government. They have done some work and we'd be making a recommendation to heads on a way forward in terms of how we treat with these applications going forward."

"These are just some of the issues. I forgot to mention climate change. We had a very important ministerial conversation in Belize City on Friday in which ministers of the environment were present facilitated by the Climate Change Center and the recommendations from that session will be coming here for consideration of the heads of government."

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