Mr. Chairman
Honourable Minister
Chief Negotiator of the Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM)
Chief Technical Adviser of the RNM
Distinguished Delegates
Staff of the RNM and the Secretariat
Members of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen

Allow me to bid you all welcome to the Second Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development convened to deal with matters being handled by the RNM.

First of all, let me say it is always a great pleasure for me as Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community and to my staff when you visit us at the Caribbean Community's Headquarters. But it is a special pleasure when amongst you are so many friends of long standing and others who have been with us for so many years . Former CARICOM Ministers, former Secretaries-General etc. It adds a warm and personal dimension to an already highly important official regional activity.

This meeting holds particular importance for the entire Caribbean region. The issues on the agenda are all critical to the economic welfare of every man, woman and child of the Region.

The current Lome and FTAA negotiations, and the upcoming WTO negotiations to which these discussions are directed, impact on every aspect of economic life of our countries, from the large foreign-owned or dominated firm to the small locally-owned corner parlour. The high income to the vagrant. The galloping global process of change in the historical nature of trade and economic relations, is an ineluctable one, but not always one which is to our benefit.

Our RNM's task which is to try wring from this process, a network of relationships which will earn us a secure and viable place in the international economic environment of the twenty-first century is no easy task, but that is its task. Fortunately it is one in which although the RNM must lead.  It is one to which all, and I stress all, must contribute. Whatever the differences in the vantage points, we occupy, none of us can afford to contribute less than our all to that process. It is in that context that I am sure we are all here - ministers, diplomats, technocrats and media all. It is certainly in that context that we of the Secretariat most welcome you and it is against that background that as Secretary-General of the Community, I implore all hands to come on deck.

It is a labour which is heavy, but it can bring a harvest of salvation.