WASHINGTON, CMC – Canada’s International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino will meet with Haiti’s Prime Minister Laurent Lamote on Friday more than four months after he questioned the level of aid to the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country. The meeting here will also be attended by officials from several international donors. In January, Fantino said his office would not initiate new projects until it had reviewed its Haiti assistance programme, warning that Canadian aid would not be a “blank cheque.”

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Observer - JAMAICAN manufacturers of some key items are likely to have their profit margins squeezed by higher duties in the Canadian export market, if Caricom fails to reach a new trade agreement with the North American country before year end.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Former Jamaica Prime Minister Most Honourable Percival Patterson is leading a delegation from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to a meeting of a Coordination Committee created to organise an International Conference which will have as its objective, the devising of a Strategic Plan for the Reconstruction of Haiti following the catastrophic earthquake of 12 January 2010.

CHRIST CHURCH, BARBADOS – Minister Pierre Pettigrew, the Canadian Minister of International Trade, met his CARICOM counterparts in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on March 10. The meeting was co-Chaired by Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Trade and Industry Hon. Kenneth Valley. The meeting provided an opportunity for both sides to assess progress made in beleaguered global trade talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO). WTO Doha Agenda negotiations have stalled due to fundamental differences and entrenched positions on a number of key issues.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown) Relations between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Canada will be bolstered in the areas of crime and security cooperation, transportation and social development, with these areas identified for further discussion and priority attention by Canada's High Commissioner and Plenipotentiary Representative to CARICOM, His Excellency Bruno Picard.