Above: the CARICOM Secretariat

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The Caribbean Community and Mexico held their third joint summit this week, looking to create a “new platform” for their relationship in the coming years.

That was the view expressed by Trinidad and Tobago Foreign Minister Winston Dookeran, chairman of CARICOM’s Council for Foreign and Community Relations, speaking at the opening of the CARICOM-Mexico meeting in Merida.

Dookeran said the relationship between the two neighbours on the Caribbean Sea had evolved into a “more mature one that took into account both global and developmental issues.”

In addition to the titular summit, the two sides also held a series of side events, including the Mexico-Caribbean Business Forum, where Mexican Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Meade urged the importance of small and medium-sized businesses in the region.

CARICOM Secretary General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque said the business forum “opens new vistas in our relationship and potentially creates opportunity for our entrepreneurs in tourism, infrastructure, agriculture, renewable energy and Small and Medium Enterprises.”

Meade also announced that Mexico would be making a $14 million contribution to the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Indurance Facility.