Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator the Honourable Kamina Johnson Smith is currently in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia where she is participating in the first-ever CARICOM-Colombia Ministerial Summit, aimed at enhancing relations between CARICOM and Colombia.
Discussions during this engagement are geared at strengthening collaboration between the region and Colombia, towards producing tangible outcomes in the areas of: trade and investment; education and language training; sports, culture and creative industries; security (trafficking in drugs and small arms; cyber-crime and countering radical extremism) and disaster risk reduction. Minister Johnson Smith will lead the discussions on Trade and Investment in the region, as well as Connectivity.
The Foreign Ministers will also engage with Colombia on issues of mutual interest at the hemispheric and multilateral levels.
Minister Johnson Smith shared that this introductory Meeting bears importance to Jamaica as “Bilaterally, Jamaica has a meaningful cooperation programme with Colombia in several key areas, including security, trade, investment promotion and foreign language training opportunities. This meeting is an excellent opportunity to deepen and expand the opportunities which exist, and to energize our trade relations.”
She also informed that there is an active Jamaica-Colombia Joint Commission which meets biannually to explore opportunities for increased technical cooperation between Colombia and the region in these same areas, which are “in line with the CARICOM’s Strategic development plan”.
Colombia is an active regional partner, particularly within the ambit of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Association of Caribbean States (ACS). Within the context of the OAS, meaningful contributions are made to the work being undertaken by that organization, especially as it relates to matters of Democracy and Rule of Law in the region.
Minister Johnson Smith is supported by a technical team from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and the Embassy of Jamaica in Colombia.
