(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)  The future direction of cooperation between Japan and CARICOM, environment and climate change, and assistance for Haiti’s reconstruction are among key agenda items for discussion when the Second CARICOM-Japan Ministerial Meeting is convened in Tokyo, Japan 1-3 September 2010.

The Meeting will be co-chaired by the Chairman of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR), the Hon. Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Dominica and His Excellency Katsuya Okada, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan. A majority of CARICOM Member States, the CARICOM and Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Secretariats will attend the three-day meeting. Her Excellency Lolita Applewhaite, Deputy Secretary-General of CARICOM, will lead the Secretariat’s delegation.

On Day Two of the meeting, a Japan-CARICOM Public Symposium on Climate Change and Biodiversity will be held at the United Nations University. The Symposium, organized by University of the United Nations (UNU), the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, will be held following bilateral meetings and ahead of visits to environment facilities.

The Hon. Maxine McClean, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados, the Hon. Peter David, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Grenada, the Hon. Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guyana and the Hon. Sir Louis Straker, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Commerce and Trade of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, will make presentations at the Symposium.

The Ministerial Meeting follows the Fourteenth CARICOM-Japan Consultations held in Georgetown on 15 April 2010.

The First CARICOM-Japan Ministerial Meeting was held in Tokyo on 8 November 2000 at which both sides signed `A New Framework for CARICOM-Japan Cooperation for the Twenty-First Century’. That Framework established priority areas for cooperation between CARICOM and Japan, and proposed a number of mechanisms to facilitate greater collaboration.

The upcoming meeting will set a new strategic framework to replace what was adopted in 2000. In addition to the revised version of the new framework, the meeting is expected to adopt a document titled `Partnership for Peace, Development and Prosperity between Japan and Member States of the Caribbean Community (Outcome Document)’, as well as the Guidelines for the Japan-CARICOM Friendship and Cooperation Fund (JCFCF).