 We acknowledge you as our Creator and Sustainer and Saviour through Jesus Christ, who is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. We thank you for your many blessings. Restore upon us and we celebrate your abundant goodness. You Lord, are great and worthy to be praised. We thank you for the privilege and the honor granted to the Turks and Caicos Islands, the host of the 52nd annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank. We invoke your presence. We pray for all the arrangements that have been made that all things will be done efficiently in decency and in order. We thank you for our premier, Honorable C. Washington Music, and all the Board of Governors and all delegates in attendance. We pray for their safety and well-being as they attend this conference. Heavenly Father, as they meet under the theme, measure better, target better, adaptation and resilience. Bless these discussions and deliberation as they deliberate on important matters of mutual interests. We pray that your Holy Spirit will guide them, grant them the wisdom they will need to deal with the issues before them. We recognize the challenges in each country and territories. They are many, but we acknowledge that government is a divine institution. Therefore, we pray for our parliamentarians and leaders, your servant, that you will continue to ground them the resources they need to fulfill their responsibility. We ask you now, most merciful Lord, to bless this conference, bless our beloved Caribbean, bless them as they measure better, bless them as they target better, bless them as they adopt and bless them with resilience. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, we turn the proceedings over to the Chairman of the Board of Governors, the Honorable Charles Washington Music. It gives me great pleasure as your outgoing Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank and the Governor representing the British OCS territories of Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Comprising a single membership of the Caribbean Development Bank to welcome you first to the Turks and Caicos Islands and then to welcome you to the 52nd Annual General Meeting of the Caribbean Development Bank. Give me a minute to make sure I get my salutations sheet with me. Haven't made that introduction. His Excellency Nigel Dakin, Governor of Turks and Caicos Islands, visiting dignitaries. Honorable Ellis Webster, Premier of Anguilla, Honorable Joseph E. Farrell, Premier of Montserrat, Honorable Philip J. Peer, Prime Minister of St. Lucia, Honorable Gordon Burton, Speaker of the House of Assembly, His Excellency, Your Excellency, annual Williams, Deputy Governor, members of the Cabinet, Honorable Runderley, Brathwaite Knowles, Attorney General, members of the House of Assembly here present, senior government officials of the Turks and Caicos Islands, Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands Government and, last of all, but certainly not least, our special guest and keynote speaker of the William D. Maas lecture last night, all the way from Africa, President of the African Development Bank Group, Dr. Ekin Wumi Adesina, members of the Board of the Caribbean Development Bank, members of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank, members of the Board of Directors of the Caribbean Development Bank, President of the Caribbean Development Bank, Dr. Hygienus Jean Leon and his wife, Ms. Brenda Thomas, the Caribbean Bank, Vice President of Corporate Services and Bank Secretary, Mrs. Yvette Limones-Seal, the Caribbean Development Bank's Vice President of Operations, Mr. Isaac Solomon, other members of the Caribbean Development Bank's senior leadership team and members of staff of the Bank, specially invited guests and members of the media. Coming out of a difficult period, many of our barring member countries, let me first say that as the host and as the Governor, I am going to be merging my welcome with a very short speech. The keynote address will come to you later from our President, but coming out of a difficult period, many of our barring member countries face a conundrum of having to do more with less. It is therefore most fitting that we should theme the meeting today, measure better to target better, adaptation and resilience. Indeed, achieving the special development goal, sustainable development goal targets will require not only adaptation and resilience in a fast-changing global environment, but also a measuring system that considers the internal resilience capacity of our barring member countries. The concept of this, I'm sure our President will speak to in his address, and so I would say no more on that particular point. At a time when we seem to be moving from one crisis to another from severe storms, COVID-19 to supply chain challenges resulting from the Russian-Ukraine war and rising price inflation, all member countries need to take care and interest in supporting the Bank and to ensure that it is equipped and able to help barring member countries navigate the challenges of food insecurity, renewable energy, climate change and environmental degradation. Therefore, as we emerge in this our very first face-to-face meeting since 2019, let this 52nd meeting of the Board of Governors serve as a clarion call for strengthening our regional partnership and recommitting to the changes that will be necessary for the sustainability of the CDB. We in the Turks and Caicos Islands and the overseas territories have gone through what is hopefully, and I think that is the case for all of us here, I believe, we've gone through what is hopefully the worst of COVID-19 and are able to host this regional meeting of the Caribbean Development Bank face-to-face. Because of the partnership and support from the CDB non-barring member, the United Kingdom, and in the case of the Turks and Caicos Islands, we have been able to open our borders earlier than many countries because of the gift of vaccines and technical support. As a result of that, we have experienced or are experiencing a V-shaped economic recovery. Our ability to support life and livelihood during the pandemic was, in addition to the availability of vaccines, the fact that we entered the pandemic with a strong economy and significant reserves would served us well. But our good fortune is not taken for granted, and we remain conscious that our gains can be erased by the full impact of a single Category 5 hurricane. So collectively we face the same threats, but together we are able to decrease our vulnerabilities and build resilience by smart planning and committed resources. Crisis often gives us an opportunity to press the reset button, and the pandemic is no different. Our survival and sustainability depend on remaining, or reimagining rather, our futures. Working with the President and his team at the Caribbean Development Bank in planning for what we hope is a renewed interest by all member countries in reshaping the future of the bank, I am reminded by Stanford psychologist Jamal Zaki of the concept psychologist called growth through adversity. Zaki challenges us to be uncomfortable with merely rebuilding or the state of merely maintaining our position, or with the state of being unscathed by the adversity, but finding ways through the lessons of hardship to focus on what it will take to not survive but to grow and to thrive. Growth then is charting a new course, escalating the former system, which will require us honing the ability to measure better, to target better. Growth will require new ways of thinking about the value proposition of what it truly means to be partners and to collaborate in our common interests. Measuring better means that borrowing member countries will need to see the value of consistent engagement and discourse of the various issues that we can collectively address, and for which we can and must find solutions. Solutions can be found when we invest in and support the Caribbean Development Bank by giving a voice at the table, articulating our considered view on perplexing matters, being a voice at times for a brother who is not doing as well as we are, by provision of resources financial or otherwise. Solutions can be found in funding research and development and other interventions that will assist all of us. We are not clairvoyant and difficulty comes to all mankind. We don't know how or when, but because it comes when we least expect it, then as McCarthy would say, maybe the thing to do is to always expect it and be prepared for it. A voice around the table will help us to plan collectively how to address these issues. We must continue members, member countries, delegates, governors, to see the Caribbean Development Bank as a regional public good and enable of the progression of the entire development agenda of the entire region. A resource that is supported by all of us. This, governors, requires all hands on deck. Admittedly, some borrowing member countries are able to access more affordable lines of credit than that offered by the CDB. However, interest rates should not be the sole variable in accessing credit. Clipping banks like the CDB have the added value of in-house technical expertise that allows them to participate in decisions involving choices relating to technology and scale. The Turks and Caicos is engaged with the bank and it is our intention to leverage our good credit rating to the betterment of the Turks and Caicos and the bank toward economic transformation. I wish to go on record in acknowledging the contribution that the CDB has made to the success of the Turks and Caicos over the years and to express thanks to the support from the bank's membership, both the borrowing member countries and the non-borrowing member countries alike. And so, I want to take the opportunity to thank the team here in the room. I gathered from a lot of the delegates at the conference and the experience so far has been good. So I'd like to thank the team here at the Office of the Premier and Public Policy and the CDB who have undertaken such a mammoth task of operationalizing the events of the meeting on the ground and commend them for a job well done. If you notice the average age of the team on the ground, you will see that they all feel young and it's important that we invest CDB in our young people and I believe part of this, the discourse of this event over the next day or so will put some emphasis on our young people. But at the risk of singing out a few persons who have stayed at the preliminary planning session, I am proud to say that the Deputy Permanent Secretary Miguel Suan willingly and ably accepted the responsibility of spearheading the plans and has been working closely with the CDB and in the Turks and Cakers with event planners, transportation and logistics experts and of course our hotels, our tourism service providers who we consider all class and have hopefully made you feel at home, away from home. Mi su casa, how you say that in Spanish, mi casa is, anyway I wouldn't go any further. This highlights the point for us to be multilingual since we are all so closely related in this region with members that speak different languages and if you notice the song, our national anthem, our national song spoke about multiplicity, races and kinds and languages. So TCI is very keen on this integration that will enrich all of us. And so without further ado, again I bid you all welcome to this 52nd meeting of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank and I thank you and I wish you a very pleasant experience for the rest of your stay here in Turks and Cakers. Thank you very much. Well ladies and gentlemen, we now have some replies to the welcome address on behalf of the Barring Member countries on behalf of the Board of Governors I'd like now to invite the President, I think I'm getting it wrong here. I'd like to welcome on behalf of the Barring Member countries, the Governor for Guyana. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Your Excellency the Governor of the Turks and Cakers Islands, Governor Nigel John Deakin, Honourable Charles Washington Missick, Premier of the Turks and Cakers Islands and Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank, Fellow Governors of the CDB, our very special guest President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of the CDB, Dr. Jane Leon, Directors, Management and Staff of the Bank, Ladies and Gentlemen. I am greatly honoured to respond on behalf of the Bank's Barring Member countries to the warm welcome extended to us by the distinguished Premier. Considering that this is our first face-to-face annual meetings in three years, one must indeed applaud the decision to meet in beautiful Providenciales. Provost spectacular beaches provide a picturesque, even if occasionally slightly distracting backdrop to the important discussions that we are having this week. And her warm and hospitable people have already embraced us in a full display of the oneness of our Caribbean family. Lest we be mistaken, the fact that we are meeting face-to-face this week should not lull us into believing that we have returned to any semblance of comfortable normalcy. In fact, we are meeting in times that are anything but normal. To begin with, the battle with COVID-19 is far from over. Over the past seven days, 3.3 million new cases were reported worldwide, of which 2.3 million came from Europe and the Americas. As a result of COVID-19, global production and supply chains are still disrupted, with shipping costs rising by more than seven times since March 2020. The war in Ukraine has further dislocated supply of key commodities. For example, wheat prices have gone up by as much as 60%, given that Russia and Ukraine account for 30% of global wheat exports. The result is a delayed recovery from the pandemic, with sharp downward revision in growth forecasts and even sharper upward revision in inflation forecasts, raising the risk of stagnation. For us in the Caribbean, the vulnerabilities which we all knew prior to COVID-19 have now been laid bare. In 2021, our BMCs are estimated to have grown by a modest 3.1%. In 2022, they are projected to grow by a more respectable 9.1%, but this growth is heavily concentrated, with only 5 of the 19 BMCs projected to grow at rates at or above the space. At the same time, we continue to carry a heavy debt burden, with 13 of our countries ending 2021 with a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 60%, and four of our countries ending the year with a ratio above 100%. The result is that our prospects for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals are even dimmer today than they were three years ago. And the implication of all of this is that the Caribbean needs the CDB, our bank, more than ever before, as we tackle the long-standing problems of economic diversification, infrastructure gaps, particularly in transport and energy, human capital development, access to basic social services, food security, and of course climate vulnerability. In this regard, I wish very briefly to highlight the following issues for special focus by the bank. First, resource mobilization and intermediation is a core function in the bank's original mandate. The success in 2021 in securing the $383 million replenishment for the tenth cycle of the Special Development Fund is therefore commended, and the role played by contributors to this replenishment much appreciated. The partnership with the United Kingdom on the Caribbean Infrastructure Fund is also an outstanding example worthy of replication. Second, the financing of projects contributing to economic development of the BMCs is the bank's core business. Maintaining a strong record of project approvals and disbursements should be a paramount objective to be pursued actively and aggressively. Reduced approvals and disbursements affect net flows to BMCs, and increased net flows are critically needed by BMCs, especially at times like these. Third, regional integration and intraragional trade are germane to the bank's objectives. At the Agri Investment Forum and Expo held in Guyana last month, the bank advised that it will use its best efforts to mobilize resources in support of a regional initiative to establish adequate and sustainable regional transportation, a historical impediment to regional trade, especially in agricultural produce. The bank has an incomparable convening authority in the region which should be deployed to support such regional initiatives. Mr. Chairman, we the BMCs look forward to this week's discussions on these and other priorities for the bank. And I conclude by thanking on behalf of the BMCs, you, sir, and the government and people of your beautiful country for the warmth of your welcome and for the excellent arrangements you've made to ensure a comfortable and conducive setting for this 52nd annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank. I thank you very much. Thank you, Guyana. We will now have an intervention on behalf of the non-regional member countries to be delivered virtually by China. I think we missed a step here. And on behalf of the regional non-barring member...