Dr. The Honourable, Christopher Tufton, Minister of Agriculture of Jamaica
Honourable Robert Persaud, Minister of Agriculture of Guyana
Other Honourable Ministers
Senior Officials
Representatives of Regional and International Institutions
Other Delegates
Colleagues of the CARICOM Secretariat
Members of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen

A warm welcome to my colleague Ministers of Agriculture and officials here for the 27th Special Ministerial Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development. I hope that your stay in Guyana will be enjoyable, but more importantly that our deliberations will be successful.

[Salutations]

It is customary on occasions like these for us to remind ourselves of the times in which we are gathered. This 27th Special Meeting of COTED is being opened here this morning against the background of a global food crisis, precipitated by spiralling commodity prices worldwide, and characterized by Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, as a “ Silent Tsunami”.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) As the Region continues to identify and implement measures to achieve food security in a time of spiraling cost of living, the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will meet in a special session next week to deal with agriculture.

Her Excellency Dame Louise Lake-Tack, Governor General of Antigua and Barbuda
Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Antigua and Barbuda and Chairman of COFCOR, the Honourable Baldwin Spencer
Honourable Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Attorney-General of Belize and Outgoing Chariman of COFCOR
Honourable Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Dominica
Honourable Ministers
Members of Parliament of Antigua and Barbuda
Assistant Secretary-General of the OAS, His Excellency Albert Ramdin