The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Trade Ministers will gather in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on Monday 10 March 2003 for a one-day meeting with their Canadian counterpart, the Hon. Pierre Pettigrew.

Monday’s meeting at the Trinidad Hilton Hotel and Conference Centre comes just nine days after CARIFORUM Trade Ministers met with the European Union’s Trade Commissioner Mr Pascal Lamy in Castries, St Lucia. CARICOM Member States constitute 14 of the 16 CARIFORUM States.

INTRODUCTION

European Union Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy, Chairman of ACP Ministerial Trade Committee, Ministerial Chairman of the European Union, Minister for External Affairs, International Trade and Civil Aviation, Hon. Julian R. Hunte, Excellencies, Invited Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Morning.

Consultations on the establishment of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), and arrangements for the inauguration of the Court, which is scheduled for the latter half of 2003, is expected to commence soon.  This was a mandate coming out of the Fourteenth Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which concluded in Trinidad and Tobago last weekend.

The 14^th Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on 14-15 February 2003. It was presided over by immediate past Chairman, H.E. Bharrat Jagdeo, President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, in the absence of the Chairman, Hon. Pierre Charles, Prime Minister of Dominica who was indisposed.