S.Atlantic : South Atlantic Representatives Attend OTCC
Submitted by SARTMA.com (Juanita Brock) 29.10.2008 (Current Article)
Representatives from the South Atlantic Islands of St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha and the Falkland Islands are attending thee UK Overseas Territories Consultative Council meeting in London this week.
SOUTH ATLANTIC REPRESENTATIVES ATTEND OTCC
  
Cllr Mike Summers of the Falkland Islands, Cllr Bill Drabble of St Helena and Conrad Glass, Chief Islander of Tristan da Cunha Photos (c) - Mike Summers - (FIG) Bill Drabble (FINN) and Conrad Glass - Beau Rowlands
By J. Brock (FINN)
Representatives from the South Atlantic Islands of St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha and the Falkland Islands are attending thee UK Overseas Territories Consultative Council meeting in London this week. The annual meeting helps in communication between mainly Island territories located in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Ideas are shared and policies compared during the sessions and a lot of good is done collectively for all UK Overseas Territories during these meetings.
Foreign Office Minister Gillian Merron is hosting the tenth meeting of the Overseas Territories Consultative Council (OTCC) in London on 28 and 29 October.
OTCC is an important event in the British Government/Overseas Territories calendar and provides a forum for the elected leaders of Britain's Overseas Territories and their representatives to discuss high-level policy with a team of British Government Ministers.
Discussions are expected to include various current issues like economic issues and the current global crisis, financial services regulation, human rights, prospects for the relationship between the EU and the Overseas Territories, the environment and disaster management. A new Tax Information Exchange Arrangement between the UK and the British Virgin Islands will be signed during the conference.
The Minister, Gillian Merron, said:
"I’m glad to be welcoming so many elected leaders from the Overseas Territories and senior ministers to the OTCC this year. The forum is a critical part of debate and decision-making between the UK and the Overseas Territories. We’ve got a great deal to discuss – from financial services to human rights - I’m looking forward to getting down to the business of ensuring continuing close relations and the security and prosperity of the OTs."
Attending for the Overseas Territories will be the Hon Osbourne Fleming, Chief Minister, Anguilla, Hon Ewart F Brown, Premier of Bermuda, Hon Ralph O'Neal, Premier, the British Virgin Islands, Hon Kurt Tibbetts, Leader of Government Business, the Cayman Islands, Hon Michael Summers, Executive Councillor, the Falkland Islands, Hon Lowell Lewis, Chief Minister, Montserrat, Mr Leslie Jaques, Commissioner, Pitcairn Islands, Hon William Drabble, Councillor, St Helena, Hon Michael Misick, Premier, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Mr Conrad Glass, Chief Islander, Tristan da Cunha.
The British Government team, led by Gillian Merron, is joined by Michael Foster MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for International Development, the Rt. Hon Stephen Timms MP, the Financial Secretary to HM Treasury, Gareth Thomas MP, Minister of State at the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, and Huw Irranca-Davies MP, the Minister for the Natural and Marine Environment, Wildlife and Rural Affairs at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Annual meetings also help representatives to keep in touch with each other. In the South Atlantic they are well known on each of the Islands and in many cases have visited all of the region’s UK Overseas Territories.
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/newsroom/latest-news/?view=PressR&id=8193211
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