Prime Minister Perry Christie is heading a ministerial delegation to attend CARICOM‘s 35th Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government in Saint John’s, Antigua and Barbuda.

The four days of meetings will officially open at 5pm on today at the Sandals Grande Antigua Resort and Spa.

The delegation includes Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe; Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell; Transport and Aviation State Minister Hope Strachan; CARICOM ambassador HE Picewell Forbes; and several government officials and aides.

These meetings are being held under the chairmanship of the newly elected Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, who will assume the Chair of the Conference for the six-month period from July 1, 2014, in accordance with the Rotation Schedule approved by the Conference at its Thirty-Second Meeting held in Saint Kitts and Nevis in July 2011.

Items on the agenda for these round of inter-sessional meetings include the tabling of a final draft of the Five-Year Strategic Plan for the Community; the report of the commission on the regional economy; Small Island Developing States (SIDS); climate change; the post-2015 development agendas; the CARICOM-Canada Trade and Development Agreement; the Regional Commission on Marijuana; and regional security.

The Prime Minister and his delegation are scheduled to return to Nassau July 4.