Heads set for Caricom summit

MONTEGO Bay, Jamaica – Eleven Caribbean Community (CARICOM) heads of government will attend the annual CARICOM summit that begins here on Sunday, the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat has said.It said that the leaders of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, The Bahamas, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago will join host Prime Minister Bruce Golding for the summit which ends on Wednesday.The Secretariat also said that associate members Anguilla and the Cayman Islands will be represented at the highest level of government.On medical leaveBut missing will be Barbados’ Prime Minister David Thompson who announced on Thursday that he was going on two months medical leave.Suriname, which recently held general elections, is yet to choose a president and therefore will not be represented by a government leader.However, it is not immediately clear why the prime minister of Belize and Montserrat’s Chief Minister, will not be in attendance.The Montego Bay summit is due to take forward decision-making on the much talked about CARICOM Single Economy.It will also consider other pressing matters related to the economy, as well as issues of crime and security, and climate change.Council meetingThe CARICOM Secretariat said that the Council of Ministers and the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on External Negotiations will meet ahead of tomorrow’s formal opening of the summit.It said that the Council of Ministers will meet today and will finalise the agenda for the summit, as well as discuss matters pertaining to the CARICOM Secretariat’s Strategic Plan for 2009 to 2015 with a view to determining its priorities over the next five years.Among the items on the agenda of the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on External Trade Negotiations, which meets tomorrow, is the status of the negotiations of the CARICOM-Canada Trade and Development Agreement, which is about to enter its third round. (CMC)