CARICOM AND CARIFORUM HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEET ON CRITICAL ISSUES

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Heads of Government of ten of the sixteen members of the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) will attend the Third Special Meeting of CARIFORUM Heads of Government, at the Sherbourne Conference Centre in Bridgetown, Barbados, on Wednesday 10 September, 2008.

CARIFORUM comprises the 14 independent states of CARICOM, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.

Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas, Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic will not be represented by their Heads of Government; the latter four countries having been affected by recent hurricanes in the Region.

The CARIFORUM Meeting is one of two Heads of Government meetings to be held on Wednesday where matters related to the signing of the CARIFORUM-EC Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) will be the focus.

The first of the meetings will be the Fourteenth Special Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) which will take place in the morning while the Third Special Meeting of the Heads of Government of CARIFORUM will take place in the afternoon.

The EPA was initialed last December by CARIFORUM and the European Union and provides for a new trading arrangement between the two parties to replace the Cotonou Agreement which governed aid and trade relations between Europe and the ACP Group of countries. The leaders will discuss some issues of continued concern in regard to the EPA as well as procedures for signing the document.

The recent spate of hurricanes which have caused widespread devastation and loss of life in Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba and The Bahamas will also have the attention of the Heads of Government as they seek to fashion a regional relief response.