Senator the Hon. Kamina Johnson Smith, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, led Jamaica’s delegation to the 49th Meeting of the CARICOM Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) in Georgetown, Guyana from November 18 to 19.The delegation also participated in the 5th Joint Meeting of the COTED and the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) in the evening of November 19.
The Minister stated “The COTED was wide-ranging in scope, addressing among other matters, the CSME Implementation Plan including skills certificates and the free movement of CARICOM nationals. We were pleased to complete our process to support the use of Jamaica’s new higher-security Skill Certificate by circulating specimens for use by each Member State.
The meeting also addressed current World Trade Organization (WTO) matters of specific interest to CARICOM, including agriculture, e-commerce, investment facilitation and Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). In that regard, the Minister also noted that “we sought alignment of our CET rates with our WTO bound rates, as we work to honour our commitments made at our last WTO Trade Policy Review to ensure compliance with our international obligations. This is very important to ensure a framework that will facilitate trade.”
The Minister further stated that at the COHSOD meeting, Ministers received an update on the Region’s progress in raising awareness of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and the identification of public policies to address the challenges posed by a growing prevalence of NCDs. Jamaica shared several of its best practices in this regard.
In the margins of the Meetings, Minister Johnson Smith also held bilateral discussions with Antigua and Barbuda and Trinidad and Tobago.
