Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community, His Excellency Edwin W. Carrington on Monday (December 20) led a delegation of senior staff of the CARICOM Secretariat to Suriname for a meeting with the President of the Republic of Suriname, His Excellency Dr. Runaldo Venetiaan, who assumes the chairmanship of the 15-member Community for six months from January 1, 2005. The meeting, which was held at the Office of the President in Paramaribo, was used to brief the incoming Chairman on the key internal and external issues on the agenda of CARICOM, as well as to discuss preparations for the upcoming Sixteenth Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government, to be held in Suriname 16-17 February 2005.

President Venetiaan said he looked forward to the opportunity of providing leadership to the Community for the first six months of 2005 and expressed confidence that with the support of the Secretary-General, his staff, Heads of Government and all officials as well as the people of Member States, his tenure as Chairman would be a successful one. "There is much work to be done in CARICOM in the New Year and I look forward to working with the entire Community to successfully undertake that work not for the sake of the President of Suriname but for the sake of the Caribbean Community and all its people," he noted.

Secretary-General Carrington said he and the entire Secretariat staff looked forward to working with the new Chairman and to another term with Suriname heading the affairs of CARICOM. "As a Community, we can look forward to much this year, which has been designated by Heads of Government as the Year of the Single Market: It will be a year that certainly will define the Community's future," Mr. Carrington said.

Contact:

Huntley Medley
Email: hmedley@caricom.org