Colleague Ministers and their distinguished delegates, Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community and his hardworking staff. I would like to wish you all a healthy and prosperous new year. May CARICOM continue to be productive and beneficial to our Region.

The year 2004 did not end as gloriously as we would have wished for all of us. Being elements of nature, we have to recognise that there are certain powers we human beings cannot control. We can learn from the devastation and work towards mechanisms to minimise the damages caused by the natural disasters. It is at the agenda of our Council meeting.

In this regard I mention our own Region, especially Grenada and Asia at this moment. Our thoughts are with all the victims and our solidarity with their families. May I ask you to stand and take one-minute silence to remember the victims? Thank you.

Assuming the chairmanship of the Community Council comes in a period when the Council has to deal with many challenges:

- becoming CSME - ready in December 2005;

- the inauguration of the Caribbean Court of Justice;

- the concretisation (finalisation) of the efforts of the region in order to take actions to manage, coordinate, and minimize the damage caused by natural disasters;

- the strengthening of the influence of CARICOM in sub-regional, hemispheric and global organizations, by taking unified positions;

- the strengthening of relations with new challenging regions and countries, such as the Federative Republic of Brazil and India.

In reviewing the agenda for this meeting, I also noticed other issues of importance to the Region, which will be discussed by this Council and further recommended to the upcoming 16th Inter-sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of State and Government in Suriname in February of this year.

The Community having primary responsibility for the development of Community strategic planning, has the onerous task in this one-day meeting to extensively deal with all the issues and to arrive at satisfactory recommendations to be carried to the Heads of Government for approval and implementation.

Having said this, I would like to thank you and look forward to fruitful, productive, and very efficient deliberations.

I thank you.