Senior officials from the Caribbean Com-munity (Caricom) and Japan are expected to meet in Guyana today to attend the 18th Caricom-Japan Consultation to discuss the strengthening of cooperation.
According to a Caricom press release, the consultation, which will be held at the Caricom Secretariat, will review Caricom-Japan cooperation since the last Ministerial Meeting in 2016. The officials will also examine the Caricom- Japan Friendship and Cooperation Fund and its current and planned projects, it added.
Technical cooperation between Japan and Caricom since 2001, the release said, has been primarily through the Japan-Caricom Friend-ship and Cooperation Fund and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
It further noted that the Japanese government, through the Friendship and Cooperation Fund, has been facilitating funding to Caricom member states in a variety of areas, including small and medium-sized enterprises, culture, agriculture, information technology, environment protection and participation in various trade fairs and funding from the Japanese private sector in the areas of energy, the environment and tourism. The funding also extends to technical assistance and equipment for projects in areas of disaster management and fisheries.
According to the release, Japan and Caricom Member States adopted the framework agreement which forms the basis for their cooperation at a Ministerial Level conference in Tokyo in November, 2000, and revised it at a second meeting in 2010. They agreed to four broad areas of technical cooperation: overcoming vulnerability and promoting human security, integrating into the global economy, environment and climate change, and assistance for the reconstruction of Haiti.
Today’s meeting will be co-chaired by Sandy Peters-Phillips, the Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of St Vincent and the Grenadines on behalf of the Caricom delegation and Yasushi Takase, the Director General of the Latin America and Caribbean Affairs Bureau, on behalf of the Japanese delegation.
