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On Thursday of this week Prime Minister, the Honourable David Thompson announced that Mr. Dennis Kellman MP would be given responsibility for the conduct of the conclusion of our Fishing Agreement with Trinidad and Tobago and to assist with Barbados’ Maritime Delimitation Negotiations.

These matters are of fundamental importance for Barbados.

In this context, the Barbados Labour Party while in Government designated first Sir Harold St. John and then Sir Henry Forde to lead both sets of these negotiations. The record will show that both of these gentlemen brought great leadership to this task and did so pro bono, there being no charge to Government for their time and expertise.

The Maritime Delimitation Negotiations remaining to be completed after the successful arbitral award with Trinidad and Tobago are those with St. Vincent, St. Lucia and with France, by virtue of our boundary with Martinique and Guadeloupe.

With respect to France, there has been agreement between the parties on the substantive principles and as a result a draft text has been prepared and distributed. The expectation is that this will be initialled at the next round so that signature may follow upon the new Cabinet’s approval.

In respect of St. Lucia and St. Vincent, discussions were held as recently as November 2007 and we should now confidently expect that the negotiations would proceed this year on the principle of equidistance, that is a halfway line.

As it relates to the Fishing Agreement with Trinidad and Tobago, both formal and informal discussions were held throughout 2007 and the one substantive matter outstanding is the completion of the Fish Stock Assessment by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). This was agreed to as a mechanism to satisfy both parties that there was no incidence of over-fishing in the past and to set benchmarks to ensure that the flying fish stock is preserved in the future.

It must be noted that in addition to the Fishing Agreement, the outgoing BLP Government had put on the table its willingness to provide technical assistance to the Tobagonian Fishing Industry for its further development. It was in that context that a delegation from Tobago headed by the Chief Secretary, Mr. Orville London visited Barbados for the opening of the Oistins Bay Gardens and to tour fish processing facilities two months ago in December 2007.

Given the critical importance of these matters to Barbados’ future national economic development (including the time-bound nature of the submission of Barbados’ claim to an Extended Continental Shelf), the Barbados Labour Party stands ready to make available the persons involved to brief comprehensively Mr. Kellman or any member of the Cabinet, if required, to ensure that there is no break in momentum in what can be a quick resolution of all of these outstanding matters. Sir Henry Forde has already made this offer to the Minster of Foreign Affairs in writing.

This is consistent with the bipartisan approach that we took while in government regarding these matters both before and after the arbitral proceedings with Trinidad and Tobago.