St. Lucia will launch its public consultations on the OECS Economic Union on Monday 17th November 2008.

A launching ceremony will be held at Derek Walcott Square in Castries at which the keynote address will be delivered by the country’s Prime Minister Mr. Stephenson King.  Other presentations will come from OECS Director General Dr. Len Ishmael, Chairman of the Task Force on OECS Economic Union Sir Dwight Venner,  and St. Lucia’s Ambassador Extraordinaire and Plenipotentiary to CARICOM and the OECS Dr. June Soomer. 

With Monday’s ceremony, St Lucia will become the fourth OECS Member State to launch public consultations on the Economic Union, following earlier launches by Montserrat,

The consultations are providing the people of the region with an opportunity to comment on and make inputs into a draft OECS Economic Union Treaty (now available for public scrutiny on the OECS website www.oecs.org) . The amended draft Treaty will go before national parliaments in Member States for ratification.

OECS Member States have agreed to pursue an Economic Union among themselves by end the 2009.  Trinidad and Tobago is expected to join the Union by 2011.

The OECS Member States are Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands.