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| St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Ralph Gonsalves |
BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, OCTOBER 4TH 2005 - Heads of Government or their ministerial representatives of CARICOM and Latin American Banana Exporting Countries are meeting in St. Kitts later this week.
Lead Head of Government with responsibility for bananas in the CARICOM Community, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister, Dr. the Hon. Ralph Gonsalves, is taking advantage of the presence of CARICOM Ministers of Agriculture in St. Kitts for the Caribbean Week of Agriculture, to convene the meeting on Friday.
The meeting is expected to arrive at a common position with respect to the recent European Unions proposal which is now being referred to a second round of arbitration. He is of the view that the opportunity still exists for Banana Exporting nations to influence the final outcome of any regime that is to be put in place from January 1st 2006.
Ministers of Agriculture of Latin America and CARICOM had discussed the issues during the IICA Hemispheric Ministers of Agriculture Meeting in Ecuador last August and concluded that a Meeting at the level of Heads of Government would be appropriately serve the interests of all the exporting countries, since for Latin America, matters relating to the banana marketing regime now fall to the responsibility of the Presidents and their Ministers of Trade.
Prime Minister Gonsalves has therefore issued the invitation to his colleague Heads of Government in the Latin American Banana Exporting countries or their ministerial representative who exercises policy direction with respect to the European Union/Banana Exporting Regime to attend the meeting.
