BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, JUNE 2ND, 2016 (PRESS SEC) – Prime Minister Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris is scheduled to attend the 37th Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Guyana between July 4th and 6th, 2016.
Prime Minister Harris will travel to the CARICOM meeting in Guyana on the heels of addressing the 17th installment of the biennial Anguilla, Nevis, and St. Kitts Associations’ Reunion (ANSAR) on July 2nd in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The St. Kitts and Nevis Cultural Association of Montreal is the organizer of ANSAR, which is being celebrated this year under the theme Moving Mountains to Strengthen our Youth and Nation Through Education.
Prime Minister Harris is to lead a delegation to Guyana comprised of His Excellency Sydney Osborne, St. Kitts and Nevis’ Ambassador to CARICOM, and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Aviation, Ms. Kaye Bass. The Press Secretary, Ms. Valencia Grant, will accompany them.
The 37th Regular Meeting will be held at the Pegasus Hotel under the Chairmanship of the Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Dominica, who yesterday, July 1st, assumed the Chairmanship of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government for the period up to December 31st, 2016.
Regional security, citizenship-by-investment (CBI) programmes, correspondent banking, and the Brexit decision are among the top agenda issues before the highest decision-making forum of the regional grouping, which has 15 Members and five Associate States.
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The 37th Regular Meeting will be officially opened at Guyana’s National Cultural Centre at 5:00pm on July 4th, 2016, CARICOM’s 43rd Anniversary. During the official opening, seven Heads of Government will deliver addresses to the attendees who will include CARICOM Ambassadors, regional and international dignitaries and media, as well as school children and the general public.
Guyana’s President, His Excellency David Arthur Granger, and His Excellency Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, CARICOM’s Secretary-General, will also address the audience, in their capacity as Hosts of the 37th Regular Meeting. Dominica was not able to host the 37th Regular Meeting because of extensive damage from Tropical Storm Erika that hit the country in August 2015.
On July 4th, 1973, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago signed the Treaty of Chaguaramas, in honour of the birthday of Norman Washington Manley, a leading advocate of the West Indies Federation who was conferred with Jamaica’s Order of National Hero on October 18th, 1969. The Treaty came into effect on August 1st, 1973.
CARICOM Heads of Government signed the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas on July 5th, 2001 at their 22nd Meeting of the Conference in the Bahamas. The revised treaty came into effect on January 1st, 2006 and officially launched the Single Market component of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).