CARICOM & SICA Meeting after 11 Years; San Pedro Declaration

The two-day meeting with CARICOM leaders will then transition into a CARICOM/SICA Meeting. According to PM Briceño, it has been almost a decade since a meeting has been held between both regional organizations. Belize, as a member to both, plays a crucial role as the bridge between Central America and the Caribbean. It is his hoped that the San Pedro Declaration comes out of the meeting.

John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“SICA and CARICOM have not met for the last eleven years and we believe that there must be a closer and stronger relationship between CARICOM and the Central American countries, through SICA. If we can work together, we can have a bigger voice, a stronger voice in the international forum. So again, I have taken the opportunity to invite the presidents to come or their vice presidents to come on Thursday to come up with a joint declaration – what we are referring to as the San Pedro declaration. So it is an exciting time for Belize. We need to take advantage of that role that we can play. Belize is historically a part of the Caribbean, but geographically, we are a part of Central America so we can play that connection; we can create the connection between SICA and CARICOM, but to do that, we have to be more active in SICA. Unfortunately, for many years, the past Government of Belize was not active in SICA so now we want to be able to do that so that we can create opportunities.”