CARICOM Secretary-General To Trade Ministers: “Adopt Realistic, Practical Decisions”

By CARICOM Photos: CARICOM Caption for main photo above: Chair of the 59th COTED Meeting, Sen. Hon. Paula Gopee-Scoon, Minister of Trade and Industry, TT (2nd from right), CARICOM SG, Dr Carla Barnett (2nd from left); Amb. Wayne McCook, Assistant Secretary-General, CSM and Michele Lowe, Director, External Trade (ag). (CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana – Wednesday, 27 November 2024)  –   CARICOM Secretary-General Dr. Carla Barnett has called on the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) to adopt realistic and practical decisions that everyone in the Community can rely on. Dr. Barnett made the call at the opening of the Fifty-Ninth Regular Meeting of the COTED on Wednesday 27 November 2024, at the CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana, where she also urged Ministers of Trade to make full use of the Treaty’s rules and flexibilities on agenda items, particularly those that are sensitive. She commended the progress being made in several areas. such as implementing the approved categories of workers under the Free Movement of Skills Regime of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). “As this COTED deliberates, we are reminded that the framers of the Revised Treaty sought to be careful to strike the right balance between the...