PM to Address COPA Meeting This Weekend

Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Portia Simpson Miller will on Sunday, March 30, address the 27^th Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Parliamentary Confederation of the Americas (COPA).

Mrs. Simpson Miller will also be honoured for 40 years of service to Jamaica as a Parliamentarian, and being the country’s first female Prime Minister.

She will also be presented with a citation by State Minister for Industry Investment and Commerce, Hon. Sharon Ffolkes-Abrahams, and President of the Network of Women Parliamentarians of the Americas, Hon. Zulma Ramona Gomex Caceres.

Jamaica will for the first time, host the 27^th COPA meeting and the Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Network of Women Parliamentarians of the Americas, which will be held at the Hilton Rose Hall Resort and Spa in Montego Bay, St. James, from March 29 to 30.

The fora will provide the opportunity for the country to showcase its tourism product, and strengthen international relations, while discussing critical issues.

Highlighting planned activities at a JIS Think Tank session on March 26, Minister of State in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Hon. Sharon Ffolkes-Abrahams explained that, “We want to showcase Jamaica in terms of parliamentary democracy and a tradition that the rest of the world can benefit from…so we are hoping for greater collaborations between all of the nations on all of the issues that face us commonly and create methods to solve them”.

COPA membership includes: Jamaica, Belize, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.