| Knight chairs special COTED meeting |
| Observer Reporter Tuesday, September 10, 2002 |
FOREIGN minister K D Knight left the island yesterday afternoon for Trinidad and Tobago where he will chair the First Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on External Negotiations being held September 10 - 11.
A statement from the foreign ministry said developments in the three main negotiating theatres, World Trade Organization (WTO), Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and African, Caribbean and Pacific-European Union (ACP-EU), are high on the agenda with the director-general of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery set to give a report to the meeting.
United States trade representative, Robert Zoellick and Mexico's minister of economy, Luis Ernesto Derbez will also hold discussions with the Caricom trade ministers on hemispheric and multilateral trade.
Zoellick was invited to attend the special COTED meeting by Knight, who said Zoellick's participation in the meeting is an attempt to ensure that "negotiations in the FTAA proceed smoothly and that the interest of small vulnerable economies can be taken into account and they be accorded special and differential treatment as provided for at the Doha Ministerial Meeting and within the FTAA framework".
Mexico is the venue for the 5th Ministerial Meeting scheduled for September 2003 where ministers of the WTO will review progress on the Doha Round of trade negotiations.