Above: Lithuania

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Th ebaltic state of Lithuania has named its first-ever Ambassador to CARICOM.

Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaite was accredited to CARICOM on Monday.

She is a former president of the United Nations Security Council and has been serving as Lithuania’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations since 2012.

Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaite

“You have been Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) which means that you are familiar with our issues such as climate change; disaster relief and preparedness; energy; tourism; information and communication technologies for education and the prevention and control of non communicable diseases,” said CARICOM Deputy Secretary-General Manorma Soeknandan.

CARICOM’s Deputy SG said that, since Lithuania is a small, middle-income country like much of the Caribbean, it would “fully understand” an issue very important to the region: “graduation,” or the way large mulitlaterals classify countries based on GDP per capita.

For her part, Murmokaite said she wished the move to establish ties with CARICOM had come sooner.

“I wish we could have taken this step sooner, but we are taking this step now and I am happy to be the very first Ambassador of Lithuania to be accredited to CARICOM,” she said.