In an ad­dress to the na­tion last night, Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning said the coun­try was al­ready in an ad­vance state of readi­ness for the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) to be held next week. The fol­low­ing is the full text.

My Fel­low Cit­i­zens,

As we ap­proach the CHOGM 2009, due to be­gin in our own cap­i­tal city of Port-of-Spain a mere nine days from to­day, I thought it nec­es­sary to ad­dress you on a few mat­ters per­tain­ing to this very sig­nif­i­cant event. I have just con­clud­ed a meet­ing with the sec­re­tari­at re­spon­si­ble for the plan­ning arrange­ments and I can tell you with as­sur­ance and pride that prepa­ra­tions for the CHOGM 2009 are mov­ing very smooth­ly. Our re­cent ex­pe­ri­ence of suc­cess­ful­ly host­ing the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as just sev­en months ago, is now serv­ing us in ex­cel­lent stead. For CHOGM, a meet­ing that is held every two years amongst mem­ber coun­tries rep­re­sent­ing some one-third of hu­man­i­ty, we in Trinidad and To­ba­go are al­ready in an ad­vanced state of readi­ness and I am sure that by the end of this three-day event, we will have done our coun­try proud.

On the mat­ter of arrange­ments, per­haps of some con­cern to our cit­i­zens, may I ex­plain. As you are aware, Her Majesty Queen Eliz­a­beth II, the Head of the Com­mon­wealth and His Roy­al High­ness, the Duke of Ed­in­burgh, along with 40 of the 51 ac­tive Heads of State and their del­e­ga­tions have con­firmed their at­ten­dance thus far. They, to­geth­er with a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of oth­er dig­ni­taries and of­fi­cials, will all be in our coun­try for a pe­ri­od of days–hold­ing meet­ings, mov­ing around on our road­ways and in our build­ings, en­gag­ing and en­joy­ing our peo­ple and places.

The se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments through­out must there­fore be flaw­less­ly ad­e­quate. We have no oth­er choice. I give you the com­mit­ment that the Gov­ern­ment will do all that is pos­si­ble, prac­ti­ca­ble and per­mis­si­ble to min­imise any in­con­ve­nience to our cit­i­zens. Ad­just­ments will nec­es­sar­i­ly have to be made by all of us, but these will be done with min­i­mum dis­lo­ca­tion to our nor­mal dai­ly lives dur­ing the time our guests will be present with us.

I am sure you know that the rep­u­ta­tion of T&T has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hanced by our host­ing of in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences.

Com­mon­wealth lead­ers will hold dis­cus­sions, among oth­er things, on the crit­i­cal mat­ter of cli­mate change as we ap­proach the Unit­ed Na­tions meet­ing next month in Copen­hagen, Den­mark. This CHOGM in Port-of-Spain, un­der our chair­man­ship, there­fore, is the last in­ter­na­tion­al sum­mit meet­ing be­fore that crit­i­cal meet­ing, and has be­come most im­por­tant to the process. We have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pos­i­tive­ly in­flu­ence its out­come. In­deed T&T is do­ing its ut­most to ad­vance the process that could re­sult in a glob­al agree­ment on this cru­cial mat­ter af­fect­ing all of hu­man­i­ty. I should al­so ad­vise you that our coun­try has been at the cen­tre of al­most fren­zied ac­tiv­i­ty among lead­ing na­tions from both the de­vel­oped and de­vel­op­ing world as we seek to en­sure that we take the strongest pos­si­ble po­si­tion in prepa­ra­tion for the Copen­hagen meet­ing.

In this con­text, and as ev­i­dence of this, Pres­i­dent Nicholas Sarkozy of France, Prime Min­is­ter Ras­mussen of Den­mark, the chair­man of the meet­ing in Den­mark, and Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed Na­tions Ban Ki Moon will be on of­fi­cial vis­its to T&T to par­tic­i­pate in this process. Ladies and Gen­tle­men, it is both a priv­i­lege and plea­sure for our coun­try to be host­ing this sum­mit of world lead­ers. Since In­de­pen­dence, our na­tion has pro­gressed in very many ways from our mem­ber­ship in the Com­mon­wealth. We have ben­e­fit­ed through the pro­vi­sion of pro­fes­sion­al and tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise in im­por­tant mul­ti­far­i­ous ar­eas of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. We are to­day a long-stand­ing and re­spect­ed mem­ber of this fam­i­ly of na­tions. This CHOGM, how­ev­er, is of spe­cial im­por­tance since we will be meet­ing in the midst of a glob­al eco­nom­ic slow­down that is af­fect­ing all coun­tries. It is on­ly con­cert­ed ac­tion by all that can re­store the world econ­o­my to sat­is­fac­to­ry lev­els of growth, and gen­er­ate the wealth and em­ploy­ment we all need. There­fore, our theme of part­ner­ing for a more eq­ui­table and sus­tain­able fu­ture de­vel­op­ment is most rel­e­vant, not on­ly re­gard­ing Com­mon­wealth co-op­er­a­tion, but al­so as an in­dis­pens­able ba­sis for glob­al ac­tion in the in­ter­est of all na­tions.

This is­sue will be one of ma­jor items of fo­cus at this meet­ing; and T&T, as the chair of the CHOGM, has a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­flu­ence the dis­cus­sion and de­ci­sion on this and the oth­er key items on the agen­da. We are al­so firm­ly of the view that non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs) de­mand height­ened at­ten­tion by the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty at this time. These dis­eases are in­creas­ing rapid­ly world wide. It is fore­cast that by 2020, NCDs will ac­count for about 73 per cent of glob­al deaths and 60 per cent of the glob­al bur­den of dis­eases. We have tak­en on board this mat­ter at the lev­el of Cari­com as we strive for the im­prove­ment of the health of our pop­u­la­tions. In­deed, we held a spe­cial Re­gion­al Sum­mit in Port-of-Spain on Chron­ic NCDs in 2007. Ad­dress­ing the re­cent Gen­er­al As­sem­bly of the Unit­ed Na­tions this year, I pro­posed that a Spe­cial Unit­ed Na­tions Sum­mit on NCDs be con­vened at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty. Com­mon­wealth lead­ers at our com­ing meet­ing will dis­cuss this mat­ter with a view to sup­port­ing this ini­tia­tive. Al­so, our coun­try, as host, will ex­pe­ri­ence in­valu­able pro­mo­tion for its sta­bil­i­ty, har­mo­nious di­ver­si­ty, democ­ra­cy and ad­her­ence to hu­man rights and free­doms.

We feel cer­tain that, among oth­er ben­e­fits, as has hap­pened in oth­er coun­tries that host­ed the CHOGM, in­vest­ment flows in­to our coun­try will in­crease as a re­sult of the meet­ing be­ing held in Port-of-Spain. In­deed we in­tend to cap­i­talise on this un­prece­dent­ed sit­u­a­tion which will bring busi­ness lead­ers and in­vestors from all over the globe to our coun­try. Through the Com­mon­wealth Busi­ness Fo­rum alone, for ex­am­ple, some 800 del­e­gates will at­tend and use the op­por­tu­ni­ty to build busi­ness part­ner­ships, cre­ate trade link­ages and set up com­mer­cial ven­tures. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, at our in­vi­ta­tion to the CHOGM, there will be very sig­nif­i­cant rep­re­sen­ta­tion from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty of the West­ern Hemi­sphere. I am sure you can now see the vast op­por­tu­ni­ties that will be cre­at­ed for the gen­er­a­tion of busi­ness ven­tures. We will in fact be host­ing what can be ac­cu­rate­ly de­scribed as a world busi­ness fo­rum in Port-of-Spain in a few days time. Sim­i­lar­ly, the con­fer­ence ac­tiv­i­ty com­mences with a Youth Fo­rum As­sem­bly. Al­so, our coun­try, as host, will gain in­valu­able pro­mo­tion and en­hance­ment by the dis­play of our sta­bil­i­ty, har­mo­nious di­ver­si­ty, democ­ra­cy and ad­her­ence to hu­man rights and free­doms.

As with the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, we are host­ing this CHOGM as a Cari­com ini­tia­tive. I am in reg­u­lar con­tact with the cur­rent chair­man of Cari­com Pres­i­dent Bharat Jad­geo of Guyana, to en­sure the ef­fec­tive pre­sen­ta­tion of our re­gion's po­si­tion on the agen­da mat­ters of the meet­ing. Ben­e­fits to Cari­com from this meet­ing and from the Com­mon­wealth gen­er­al­ly, are clear­ly in the in­ter­est of T&T, giv­en the in­ter­con­nect­ed­ness of our economies and so­ci­eties.

Tonight, as I thank every­one for the ded­i­ca­tion and en­er­gy they have, and will be giv­ing to this his­toric un­der­tak­ing, I feel sure that we can count on our cit­i­zens to be most sup­port­ive of the ef­forts to host a suc­cess­ful CHOGM. Our coun­try will be even more than usu­al in the glob­al spot­light. Every pos­i­tive sto­ry of T&T that em­anates from this meet­ing will go a long way to­wards our in­ter­na­tion­al promi­nence, re­in­forc­ing our rep­u­ta­tion as a pro­gres­sive place where one can vis­it and do busi­ness...as we be­come more and more de­vel­oped on a day-by-day ba­sis. All of this will nec­es­sar­i­ly re­dound to the ben­e­fit of present and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of our Na­tion. There­fore, let us each do our part to en­sure the suc­cess of this CHOGM. Let us re­turn the warm wel­come we ex­pe­ri­ence when we our­selves are on trav­els abroad. Let us once again put our best foot for­ward in the in­ter­est of a bet­ter T&T.

Thank you very much.

I wish you all a pleas­ant good night, and may Almighty God bless our Na­tion.