Conference on the Caribbean opens
NEW YORK, CMC – Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer says the Second Annual Conference on the Caribbean will open up doors for further dialogue and concrete initiatives, spurring regional economic growth. In delivering the keynote address Thursday at the launch of ‘The New York Conference on the Caribbean Community: A 20/20 Vision Continued’, the Antiguan leader said “the moment is opportune” for the region to engage in this “interface with existing and prospective investment and trade partners”.
“We are here not only to advance relations between the State of New York and the Caribbean, but also to initiate meaningful dialogue with the Caribbean Diaspora resident here,” he told a packed Brooklyn Borough Hall.
“Indeed, the packed agenda, which will engage our attention over the next two days, is truly an exciting one which holds tremendous prospects for the mutual exploration and discussion of the numerous opportunities which exist for enhanced collaboration between New York and our CARICOM (Caribbean Community) member states,” he added.
Spencer said he was pleased that many of the region’s trade, investment and financial experts and practitioners have been able to participate in the two-day event with regional leaders - Trinidad and Tobago’s Patrick Manning, Denzil Douglas of St. Kitts and Nevis, Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow, Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominica, Barbados’ Prime Minister David Thompson, Guyana President BharratJagdeo and Bermuda’s Premier Ewart Brown.
He said they will have the opportunity to engage in discussions with some of New York’s leading investors, stockbrokers, economists and other representatives of the financial sector.
Spencer said he was also delighted that education is taking centre-stage at the conference, noting that it is one of the “very important elements of functional cooperation, both intra-regionally and extra-regionally”.
“We will seek to formalise the already considerable informal links between regional tertiary institutions and their New York counterparts in a way that is beneficial mutually beneficial,” he said.
He said the brain drain is a “real challenge” to the Caribbean, with many of its “best and brightest” leaving the region for North America and other countries.
“We must strengthen our education institutions in order to provide for regional as well as international demand in critical areas,” Spencer said.
An education symposium at the Brooklyn Marriott, conducted collaboratively by CARICOM’s New York Consular Corps and Brooklyn’s Medgar Evers College, is among the highlights planned Thursday.
It features CARICOM Heads of Government and ministers along with leading educational authorities in New York. The forum underscores “benefits of existing collaborative models” and discusses the role of the Diaspora in expanding ties between the region and North America, CARICOM diplomats here said in a statement.
In his brief opening remarks, Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel, chairman of the powerful US House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee who had pushed for the conference to be conducted in New York, said the region and the US have “a true partnership with mutual respect”, insisting that “no body is going to change that”.
Yvonne Graham, the Jamaican-born special assistant to Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, said it was fitting that Brooklyn was hosting the event and that it was taking place during Caribbean Heritage Month.
“America and New York, in particular, have a very long-standing relationship with the Caribbean, known as the United States’ Third Border,” said the aspirant Brooklyn Borough President.
“The Caribbean region has more than earned the world’s respect,” she added.
Via [Cana News Network ]
