Prime Minister Bruce Golding will deliver the feature address at a one-day conference on the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) in the Caribbean.

The invitation-only conference will be held in Jamaica on May 21, according to the organisers, the London-based Caribbean Council and the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce.

Caribbean governments last year signed the EPA after years of negotiation and amid concerns, particularly by Guyana, that the region would not receive many benefits from the trade accord that replaced the Lome Agreement.

Interactive discussions

The conference will be chaired by Dame Billie Miller, former senior minister and minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade of Barbados, and the former lead CARICOM ministerial spokes-person on the EPA.

Other addresses at the conference will come from Ambassador Lorne McDonnough, the chief executive officer of the CARICOM Regional Development Fund; Elizabeth Carriere, head of the UK Department for International Development Caribbean; and Omar Azan, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association.

The conference will engage participants in several interactive panel discussions led by Nigel John, president of the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce and David Jessop, executive director of the Caribbean Council.