Leaders and finance officials to hold joint talks in St John’s

ST JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – Leaders of the nine-member Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) will get a status report on plans to create an economic union among member countries when they meet here on Friday.

Officials from the St Lucia-based OECS Secretariat are scheduled update a joint meeting of the OECS Authority and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) Monetary Council on the initiative scheduled to start being implemented in June.

Also on the agenda for the one-day meeting is a presentation by the ECCB on recent economic and financial developments in the sub-region and the outlook for the months ahead, and progress made to date on an eight-point stabilisation and growth programme for the Eastern Caribbean.

It is expected that the discussions will feature the situation at CLICO and British American, two insurance firms with vast operations across the OECS and which have been feeling the fallout from the financial problems plaguing parent company, CL Financial, in Trinidad and Tobago.

The meeting will be hosted by Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer. The Prime Ministers of Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines; along with the Chief Ministers of Anguilla and Montserrat; and the Premier of the British Virgin Islands are scheduled to be present in St John’s.

Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada, the two OECS governments where the leaders do not oversee the finance portfolios, will also be represented by their Finance Ministers.

ECCB Governor Sir Dwight Venner and OECS Director General Dr Len Ishmael are also expected to attend the meeting.