The Twentieth Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) was held in Belize City, Belize, from 12-13 March 2008. Dean O. Barrow, prime minister of Belize, presided.

Other members of the Conference in attendance were: the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas Hubert Ingraham; the Prime Minister of Barbados David J. H. Thompson; the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica, the Roosevelt Skerrit; the Prime Minister of Grenada Tillman Thomas; the President of the Republic of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo; the Prime Minister of Jamaica Bruce Golding; the Prime Minister of the Federation of St. Kitts/Nevis Dr. Denzil L. Douglas; the President of Suriname Drs. Runaldo R. Venetiaan; and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago Patrick Manning.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Alrich Nicholas, represented the Republic of Haiti; the Minister of External Affairs, International Trade and Investment Rufus Bousquet, represented St. Lucia; and the Minister of National Mobilisation Michael Browne, represented St. Vincent & the Grenadines.
Associate Members in attendance were the Osbourne Fleming, the chief minister of Anguilla, and the Dr. Ewart Brown, premier of Bermuda.

OPENING SESSION

The Opening Session was addressed by the Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community Dean Barrow, Prime Minister of Belize, and the Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community Edwin W. Carrington.

In his statement, the chairman of conference posited that at the heart of the Meeting’s deliberations must be a reminder of what integration was designed to achieve.Announcing his intention to propose a constitutional amendment to allow Belize to sign on to the appellate jurisdiction of the Caribbean Court of Justice, the chairman said the fact that only two countries of the Community had signed on to the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ contributed to the “cynicism
about the seriousness of our commitment to Caribbean identity.”

The chairman cited instances of the progress of the integration movement and said that while there could be some measure of satisfaction, too much remained to be done. “The philosophical and practical difficulties loom large; and the trick now is to consolidate the gains of the single market while picking our way carefully forward to the establishment of the single economy,” he said.
In his statement, the secretary-general emphasised the importance of regional responses to international developments that were a cause for concern. “If anything this period in global history has underscored for us in this region is the absolute urgency for this community to have the capacity to act and indeed to so act as one entity in such instances,” he said.

SIGNINGS

Member states signed a number of legal instruments at this meeting. The list is appended to this Communiqué.

THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRISIS

Heads of government deliberated on the global financial and economic crisis and its impact on the community and agreed to pursue a regional strategy based on recommendations of the task force established by the Council for Finance and Planning (COFAP). The task force will produce a report with both a short and medium term perspective on the policy implications of the crisis.
Heads also issued a statement on the regional perspective on the crisis which is attached to this Communiqué.

CSME
Heads of Government reiterated their commitment to the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) and its implementation and effective functioning paying particular attention to free movement of persons, accreditation and standardisation mechanisms.

They also emphasised that the CSME was a critical platform for meeting the challenges resulting from the current global financial and economic crisis and for Caricom’s successful insertion into the world economy.

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