 Ladies and Gentlemen, and welcome to the press conference at the end of the 40th meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community. To bring the world up to date on what was discussed over the last two days, we have with us the Chairman of Conference, the Honourable Alan Chassane, Prime Minister of St. Lucia, the Honourable Mia Motley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, and His Excellency Irwin LaRoc, Secretary General of the Caribbean Community. The press conference will be opened with a statement by the Chairman, Prime Minister Chassane. Thank you very much. It has been a most productive meeting with free-flowing and frank discussions on a range of matters which were before us. As to be expected, issues related to the caracom single market economy were aired, and we urge that as a matter of priority, Member States undertake the necessary action at the national level to complete the measures outlined in the implementation plan. We acknowledge the importance of timely reporting on our implementation actions and the challenges. There is no doubt that as well, we must enhance our efforts at public education and outreach. We had a good engagement with representatives of the private sector, labour and civil society. The private sector has made progress towards establishing the caracom private sector organization to enact formally with the heads of government and to be designated as the associate institute of the community. This is expected to be finalized by the end of this year. Its specific purpose was to support fully the implementation of the CSME. We have agreed to designate the Caribbean Congress of Labour, the CCCL, as an associate institute of the community and welcome its commitment to engage with the CSPO on the mechanism for its participation in that grouping. A matter of concern to the heads of government is a continued blacklisting of some of the Member States and associate members, which is clear and direct threat to the economic well-being of those countries and in particular the region. We agreed to refine the caracom strategy on blacklisting. With respect to Haiti, we agreed that a delegation of heads of government would visit the country to inform ourselves of the situation in that country. In our discussions on the Venezuela, we reiterated the importance of resolving the crisis peacefully through dialogues between the both parties. We also agreed that the mediation-related activities would be continued pursued by the Prime Ministers of St. Kitts and Nevis, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago as designated by the conference in the 30th session of the meeting. We expressed our support for the facilitation process being carried out by Norway with both sides of the dispute. We had very fruitful interaction with the Prime Minister of Norway. The Honourable Erna Söldeberg, as we discuss issues of concern to the community, such as concessional financing to build resilience, climate change, the environment and the sustainable ocean economy, in particular with respect to marine pollution. The Prime Minister indicated she appreciated our positions on the issues and supported them in large measure. The presence of the UN Secretary General, His Excellency Antonio Guterres, underlined the importance of the series of United Nations high-level events during this 74th session of the UN General Assembly from the 23rd to the 27th of September 2019. We felt that these high-level sessions presented an opportunity to advocate for several issues of interest to the member states, particularly climate change, financing for the development and sustainable development. Secretary General Guterres, as you heard in his statement at the opening ceremony, committed his organization to taking the steps it could to improve the access for small states to development financing as a priority. He also declared that eligibility for official development assistance should include vulnerability criteria, which is very much in sync with our own position. We also received a presentation by the Lodge, which is an organization facilitated and endorsed by the Duke of York. It is expected that we will be making a further presentation at the UNGA meeting in collaboration with the SIDS on a global basis. Let me end by saying that I am looking forward to the next six months as I work with my colleagues in the Secretary General to advance the interest of the community. Thank you, Prime Minister. I would invite Prime Minister Motley to make an opening statement. Answer questions and to provide any support, but I'd like to just make one point. I think that this meeting will be historic if only for one reason, and it was the recognition by the Secretary General of the United Nations that the issue of vulnerability is a valid criterion to be considered with respect to the determination of official development assistance or other forms of financing for our countries within the region. Someone who has been following the public affairs of small island states for the last few decades will know that whether it was with respect to the establishment of the World Trade Organization, when we argued the necessity for special and differential treatment on the basis that we were not in any way contributing to distort global trade in goods or services, or whether it has been in our continued insistence, particularly in recent years with respect to the negative consequences of climatic change, that we literally have an inherent vulnerability as a small state that cannot be discounted. It has been almost 20 years that we've been waging this battle, and to have the formal recognition at the opening ceremony of this heads of government meeting was indeed a momentous occasion for us, and it is upon this that we have now to build and to ensure that the exclusion of access by many of our countries from official development assistance or concessional funding ought to be reconsidered, given the fact that regardless of how well we may appear to be doing within 48 to 72 hours, our entire existence can change in this region during the month of September, and I believe that that recognition therefore by Minister Shasne will come to be regarded at this point in time, at this 40th heads of government meeting here at Cass Trees. There were a number of other significant achievements too that may not be as sexy, but a recognition that we have to work together, for example, to be able to fight the issue of the Sargassum weed, we have to look at the science behind it, we have to see how best we can cooperate, and the presence of the Honourable Ernest Solvog, Prime Minister of Norway, and the fact that Norway has been the leading voice on ocean governance, and on that commission also sits the Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Honourable Andrew Holness, gives us comfort that we can work towards working with them, and in particular the Association of Caribbean States, which has been the designated entity with respect to the other wider Caribbean States on the issue of many of these matters pertaining to maritime affairs, but in particular on the Sargassum, that we can work in a collaborative way to see where the science is taking us, what is really causing it, to see how we can deal with the engineering that's necessary because the real issue comes from the rate at which the Sargassum is coming on shore, and if we could treat it as a marine resource, just as you treat fish or minerals, it'd be no problem, but the difficulty comes once, it comes on shore, the rate at which it comes on shore, and the toxicity and the noxious odours that flow from it, and I think you only have to look and see what's happening as far I feel as Mexico and in Florida to understand that this is not an eastern or southern Caribbean issue, this is an entire issue effect in the region. The other major matter for me, which we've agreed to at this conference, is the recognition that in building out the single market and single economy, that we need to build capacity, and indeed there had been a time when within the community we were sharing the resources among our Chief Parliamentary Council with respect to the drafting of legislation, acts and bills, that has fallen in to this way through, we've agreed that we need to work with our development partners to establish a regional law reform commission that will comprise eminent legal brains to help us because legislation is at the core of governance, and if we can't prepare the policy and the legislation that's necessary to bring about the changes within the single market and the single economy, we're not going to see the level of progress that we ought to be seeing, and therefore we are grateful also that the premium Cayman Islands has agreed that their own law reform commission will work with CARICOM in the establishment of this regional law reform commission. The establishment of the CARICOM private sector organisation is another major achievement. We believe that this is an absolutely essential component along with the existing Caribbean Congress of Labour to our being able to work cooperatively to make the difference with respect to the things that we can achieve at a regional level. If you recall in December, in Port of Spain, we set out a framework for the medium term that we would want to see levels of production integration with respect to renewable energy, food security, air and maritime transport and ICT technology, and therefore the establishment of this regional private sector entity, the CARICOM private sector organisation is absolutely critical to our being able to work in a collaborative fashion to see movements on some of these factors, and the last point that I'd like to make and perhaps I should have done it earlier, 25 years ago within the heads of government of this region, the idea or more than 25 years ago, the idea of an association of Caribbean states was given birth, and we would want formally to recognise the association of Caribbean states 25th anniversary because we do believe that and we're seeing it now that we are bound by a Caribbean sea that has to be regarded first and foremost as a zone of peace, but secondly by a Caribbean sea that is at risk of threatening our stability and our economic development with the onset of the Sargassan in recent times, and of course we can go on to talk about the reefs and the warming of the oceans and the sea rise, but those two immediate things should be enough to tell you that we are bound by this sea irrespective of who colonised us or what language we speak, and to that extent the association of Caribbean states 25th anniversary is something that we would want to appropriately celebrate as well given that its birth came out of this Carycom heads of government institution some years ago. Thank you. Thank you Prime Minister. We now invite your questions, but in asking your questions could you please state your name and the media organisation that you represent? Hi, good afternoon, Janika Simon from Choice TV in St Lucia. Prime Ministers, thank you very much for your comments. I want to ask whether you can maybe elaborate a little bit more on your discussion specifically about timelines for action in terms of implementation of various actions for the deepening of CSME. I know that I saw him a while ago, Professor Hilary Beckles has lamented that we in the region suffer from what's called implementation deficit disorder, so maybe you can give some comfort to your citizens by talking about specific actions and specific timelines that you're taking to deepen regional integration. Thank you. Thank you. The timelines are long and I'd ask, when I say long, there's a long list of timelines rather, and I'd ask the secretariat to share them with you after, but the bottom line is that we have for us a number of things that will be happening. We hope, for example, by the next Carycom intersession meeting which will be held in Bridgestone in Barbados, that we will put behind us a number of the key aspects of the financial architecture, a common financial services agreement, the work towards regional harmonization with the stock exchange, the credit rating bureau, the whole question of a common investment policy. Similarly, there are some definitional issues that we're trying to sort out with respect to fisheries workers, so we've separated fisheries workers from agricultural workers. This is the nitty-gritty of execution to provide the level of certainty that will give our citizens the comfort that we want them to have. Of course, we have made significant progress in the last year with the establishment of the contingent rights, people being able to move with respect to their families and dependents and having the comfort that, whether it's with their spouse and dependents, they can get certain rights as they move. The public procurement notice board that will allow businesses in different countries to be able to participate in procurement. These are some of the things that we have done in the last year and quite frankly, we've done a hell of a lot, but we also recognize that we need to just on a few of the more complex issues, which is what a lot of the financial services type agreements are, that we need to be able to carry along all each and every one of our jurisdictions. There's some concerns on drafting issues and it is important that, therefore, instead of rushing it for this year, we give ourselves till February next year with respect to that. There are some other issues. The Multilateral Air Services Agreement was signed. We expect that to be fully operational shortly. I think Carycom can give you the list. There's about two pages of items and timelines and that will help you in being able to share, but I think that the, I don't want to call it an implementation deficit disorder anymore. I think that having diagnosed what it was that the medication is working, but as I said to my people in Barbados, we need to stay on course, stay the course. It would be remiss of me at this time not to, and I'm sure my colleagues would concur, but to reiterate some of the comments I made in my opening statements at the opening session, and that really is to recognize the incredible effort of Prime Minister Motley when it comes to CSME. So the other good thing is I think that Prime Minister Motley has genuinely recognized some of the more difficult situations as it pertains to the MDCs and LDCs, and that we cannot move forward until that is resolved, and that people's silence sometimes cannot be taken as agreeing that we have a difficult situation in that we're not building an architecture anymore in anticipation of what is going to happen. We in fact have had several years of CSME, and so there are some of the elements that we already know and understand, and now understanding them is how do we now include that in being able to move forward. I felt at this meeting that there were several tense and intense discussions, and that while some people might find these things offending, I don't, because it means we're now starting to get to the core of what the issue was, and what was incredibly satisfying was the renewal of the commitment by both the MDCs and the LDCs to work together, recognizing that both entities need to make sacrifices. The LDCs have made significant sacrifices in opening their doors to competition of the MDCs, and the MDCs equally must also recognize those sacrifices, and to know that their benefits that they have received could only be continued if in fact the LDCs continue to participate. So I don't want you to believe it's simply of dotting the i's and crossing the t's. There are some emotional issues that need to be resolved, and the fact is that while some people may not want to think that we sit here representing the citizens of our country, we do, and as the Prime Minister of Gonzales of St. Vincent continues to remind us, we are a community of sovereign and independent countries, and so continuously trying to get the unanimity that's required to move forward is not easy, but I just want to really congratulate the Prime Minister that since he has now taken back the helm of the CSME and given her own experience with regards to World Cup and also many security matters, that we've seen a new energy and a new resolve, and I can say I believe that all of us would agree that what is required from the leadership in the Caribbean today is humility, that we don't take any of the issues that are happening on a personal basis, but recognize we also have a right to represent our citizens, and I think that we made substantial progress in recognizing some of our deficiencies, recognizing that there were some people who were having difficulties in articulating properly what their concerns were, and now putting those concerns on the table and dealing with them, because that's the only way that we could move forward, so again I want to congratulate her on the efforts that she's put forward and a lot of the success, while she cannot do it alone, but a lot of the successes really can be attributed directly to her intensity, involvement, and passion. It would be remiss of me as well, and it's not a mutual admiration club, but it really isn't, but Prime Minister Chastney has gone out on a limb on the issue of this matter of access to financing for small vulnerable states, and part and parcel of the achievement of having the UN Secretary General speak in the way in which he spoke at the opening of this meeting is really as a result of the consistent efforts of a lot of people, but Prime Minister Chastney has been one of those who has perhaps travelled more to engage more on these issues, and we don't expect that it is going to change overnight, and I want to constrain people's expectations, but it is the beginning of a journey we hope to start to turn around the equation and to start to turn around the conversation with respect to what options are available to us as small island developing states. We have said repeatedly, we have not been at the front line of contributing to the war, to the global warming, but we have been on the front line of the consequences of it, and the notion that every September brings a level of anxiety in the eastern and southern Caribbean is something that cannot be ignored, and the world does not appreciate it, he who feels it knows it, you have to live through it to know it and to understand it, and we're beginning to get that message home to others, and I want to thank him for that, and what is perhaps less said, we've also had the opportunity here in Castries to have a number of high level encounters with counterparts in the region, U.S. Congresswoman from U.S. Virgin Islands, Stacy Pasket, and she's chair of the Caribbean Caucus in Congress, and then with Mr. Arnold Donald from Carnival Corporation, who is the CEO of Carnival Corporation, and as you know, most of our islands in the eastern and southern Caribbean depend in some measure or another on cruise tourism, and I think being able to bring those persons here for that encounter, along with the U.N. Secretary General, and along with the Prime Minister of Norway has made these last two days very rewarding at many levels. History does not happen in a straight line all the time, but what is important is that we take account and claim ground wherever we can and move to the next level, and I'm satisfied that this meeting made an appreciable difference to our continued path along making the CSME and this regional integration experiment a reality for the better for Caribbean people. The other points that perhaps have not been highlighted on, and I will only say this, is that there is a recognition that we speak as a community of sovereign states with principle, and whether it is on Venezuela with respect to peaceful dialogue, or whether it is in understanding what is happening in Haiti through the establishment of a prime ministerial subcommittee that will have the chairman of Caricombe, Prime Minister Shasne, Prime Minister Minnes from Bahamas, and Prime Minister Holnes from Jamaica, along with the Secretary General to allow us to be able to be at the forefront of determining the factual matrix in Haiti, because we have no difficulty as a community with speaking truth to power, but we will always do so on the basis of an independent analysis of our own, and based on our understanding and appreciation of the principles that have been enshrined both in the revised Treaty of Chagoramas, but also in the Charter of Civil Society, which we continue to uphold. Sji, I don't know if you want to add to that. Thank you, Madam Prime Minister. I think we had extensive discussions, as you've said, and we'll be planning this mission into Haiti very, very soon. Contrary to what others may have been saying, we have been in contact with Haiti all along, and you have seen some statements that were issued by the immediate past president, chairman. I also want to recognize, by the way, the work that was done by Prime Minister Timothy Harris in the past six months, very, very active period. On the issue of the advancement of the CSM, a number of legal instruments, well, integration, a number of legal instruments were signed by member states. I think we are very, very close to seeing the multilateral air services agreement becoming operational, which would free up the skies in the region. We had a number of signatures and some ratifications, and also over legal instruments. It was an extensive discussion as well, sorry, on our security instruments. So we've made progress in those areas, and I think we need to recognize that. I cannot underscore the work that we've been doing internationally. I think very often Caracom is judged solely on what you think you hear about the CSME and this word, which I dislike, implementation deficit, because it's a process. Our integration arrangement is a process. It's a constant moving forward, and you have to negotiate among the 15 member states to get things done. A lot of good technical work goes on behind it, and then we move forward as we go in. But our integration is much more than that. We are security coordination, foreign policy coordination, security cooperation, foreign policy coordination, and human social development. For instance, we planned for preparations for the series of meetings at the UN General Assembly, meetings on climate change, on financing for development, and on SIDS. And all of that is part of our advocacy in terms of financing. The financing that both Prime Ministers have mentioned is so critical for us. The point has been made for so long that you need the funding for resilience, not after hurricane or after disaster, you need it before. And these things don't happen overnight. You have to keep advocating for it. And it's a process. Everywhere you go, it's a process. International Committee is a process, but we're making steady progress. And I think this was, in that regard, quite a successful engagement. The engagement with our guests, the two guests as well as with Congresswoman Stacy Plastket was very, very important in terms of persons understanding more and more the issues of the Caribbean community and of small states. The Secretary General of the Caribbean of the United Nations has come down to a region before his back again, which demonstrates a commitment and an interest in matters of small states. And in the private discussions held afterwards, that commitment was recommitted. So I think we have made progress on the community front. We've made progress on the international front, and we have to keep plowing forward. It was one of the matters, Mr. Chairman, that we didn't raise. And we can perhaps share. I think we made a significant decision for the future through the establishment of an African, Brazilian, Caribbean diaspora commission. And it will be chaired by Prime Minister Gonzalez. And it's a recognition that we have common interests and that these common interests need now to be bridged in a way that reinforces the options for our society as well as for our economies. And to that extent, we want to have a strategic approach to it. And Prime Minister Gonzalez, the President of Suriname, and myself will serve on the committee, but it will be open-ended to all member states because this is something we expect to deliver for us. I've been speaking about our Atlantic destiny as a nation state. And the last point that I'd like to make is that I'd like to thank fellow member states of Cary Com for offering their support for Barbados in the hosting of the bid to host the 15th quadrennial assembly of UNCTAD in October next year, October 2020. Barbados will become along one of the smallest states ever to host this assembly of UNCTAD. And we will be doing it jointly with the United Arab Emirates and will equally then in Dubai jointly host with them. We're bidding to do the World Investment Forum there so that we will have a joint approach to the UNCTAD General Assembly in Barbados and similarly to the World Investment Forum in Dubai. And it would be remiss of me for not thanking our colleague countries for the support that they're giving us. The trade and development round of UNCTAD have recommended us, but the matter has now to go to the UN General Assembly in September. I just want to maybe comment on a couple of things. First of all is also to acknowledge the meeting with Congresswoman Stacy Plaskett, who is the chairperson of the Caribbean caucus, but also the representative from the U.S. Virgin Islands. And this is significant because obviously those are two very instrumental representations for us. One, she's coming specifically from the Caribbean and certainly she's a Democrat. So it means that we also have both parties that we have to be able to navigate through because they are White House policies and then they are Congress and senatorial positions. And so therefore the continuing effort both on financial services as well as trade came up with the U.S. As part of that, I was very grateful for my colleague's endorsement for us to continue the efforts to be able to establish a Florida Caribbean conference, which is due to take place in early December in Florida. The governor of Florida, the senators of Florida, the congresspersons, both of the Democrats and Republicans and also the mayor of Miami have endorsed this this conference. The expectation is at a very high level that we can start integrating with the Florida politicians and assist us in our lobbying effort in Washington DC. And why Florida is because it's the state where we have the greatest amount of economic impact. In fact, almost 80 cents of every dollar that a U.S. tourist spends in our region goes back to America. And so between the airlines, the cruise ships, the same natural disasters that are affecting us are also affecting Florida. The same issues and source of crime with regards to drug trafficking are coming in the same region. So there are a lot of synergies to be had by both groups in terms of working together. And I guess the last one, which is a very critical one, is the Caribbean's diaspora is significant in Florida. So not only are we able to on an economic basis, but certainly from a policy perspective and influencing a voting in the region, we will make sure that the diaspora is a significant part of the conference that we're going to be moving forward to. And last but not least, I was very grateful not only for the comments that the U.N. General Secretary Guterres gave, but his endorsement of our idea of being able to create a SIDS Foundation for resilience. And there was a presentation by a group called the, was it called the Legion? The Lodge Group, which is a group that is associated to the Duke of York that have put a proposal together to assist us in providing the governance structure and the mechanism to be able to get private sector funds to come in to assist us in our challenge with the SIDS. And I very much appreciate the support from my colleagues with the understanding that at a later date that would be making a presentation on the more on details in terms of how that would work. But the expectation is that we're going to be making a wider presentation to the SIDS in September. And if in fact that we're able to obtain the final endorsement from both CARICOM and also the Pacific SIDS, the intention would be to try to quickly move to meet with some of the ODA countries and multilaterals in terms of getting funds into this thing. And I want to make the point that what we're looking to do is to seek us to get additional funds. This is not to tap into the funds that we currently have, but this is funds that we believe that this region is due as a result of what's taken place with the global warming and climate change. We cannot deal with this handle the situation through mitigation. The SIDS collectively are only a half a percent of the emissions. And if we are to have adaptation, it's impossible and studies have proven that by the IMF for us to use our current sources or to have borrow money directly to be able to fulfill our needs from an adaptation perspective. And certainly the idea of SEGASM and also rising sea levels are things that are not we're not even included in the cost. So that's only going to make it that much more difficult for us to be able and moving forward. So again, there were so many areas that were covered. And the last one that I have to say to you that I was very encouraged by was the presentation on security in which there is a consensus and moving together with regards to a rapid response unit. I believe we're waiting for the final costings of that. That would be a regional rapid response unit and also that we are very close, I believe, in getting a commitment on a funding formula to be able to enhance what we're doing currently at impacts and also at the GRCC. So again, that's encouraging news because these are very important levels in terms of us effectively executing our remit to our citizens. Good evening. Joshua Centemi from the Central Star. I was just wondering if there were any discussions on the Citizenship by Investment programs throughout the region? There wasn't any specific questions or discussions other than to note that the European group that currently are the Code of Conduct group in Europe have indicated that they are going to be reviewing both the CIP programs and the residency programs and that we felt that we should not do what happened to us with regards to harmful taxation and wait for it to happen but to anticipate it. So I think that there was a proposal put forward to jointly sponsor a review of our options and our strategy moving forward and there were certainly agreements on a lobbying campaign both in the Europe and as well as the United States of America. So nothing specific to CIP but other than recognizing that there is a potential danger in the horizon and that we should try to anticipate that. And concerning the SAR GASM, can you speak to, or either you are Prime Minister Motley, what exactly will the joint effort be in tackling that issue? As I said, we have to go where the science takes us. Part of the difficulty is the ACS I met with earlier today because they have just come out of the conference in Mexico. They are pulling together for us all of the scientific research. We need to see how we can build on that because you have to follow the science in these matters. And then on the engineering side we need to have the engineering capacity to be able to deal with the rate of movement of the SAR GASM as it comes on shore because I'm sure you know when you're going to smell it, when it comes on shore, it's completely different from when it's floating in the sea. When it's floating in the sea it's like a film. When it comes on shore you're talking about meters, five, six, seven, eight meters of SAR GASM just on top of each other and the noxious smells like rotten eggs. So we have to follow the science and we have to develop an engineering capacity. And what SAR GASM is showing us is that it is no respecter of language, of sovereignty, of any of the other things that separate us at the moment. And we would do well to come together to try to resolve something that is causing us great harm. And it's causing harm where it hurts the most is fishermen, hoteliers. And it's really the small hoteliers because the larger ones may have the capacity to fight it on a daily basis. The average small hotel does not have the capacity to fight it on a daily basis. The people who are craftsmen who depend on the volume of persons coming in to those tourism communities, the people who are cooking who all of a sudden don't have anybody coming to them because the numbers are dwindling because of the impact of it. So we know we can make soaps from it. We know we can make fertilizers from it. We need to be able to see how can we harvest it to be able to create sustainable economic enterprises out of it. And this is where the cooperation comes together. We'll make a difference to all of us. Are we going to solve it overnight? No, we're not. But we have to start and treat to it in as a major way as we've treated to the issue of global warming as a whole. Thank you. And seeing that there are no further questions, we'd like to thank you for it. Hold on. Okay. What? There can't be many more. We'll have one more. On the candidacy of the OES Secretary General, we seek in the second term. The question is whether the heads adopted a position with regards to the endorsement of the Secretary General of the OES for a second term that never came up. And I think internally we've had discussions about that. And I think many of us have voiced our concerns, but there are no official position has been taken on that. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the media. And thank you to Chairman Chastany, Prime Minister Motley, and the Secretary General. And I hope the message gets out far and wide. Good night.