GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders will meet in Haiti next month, the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat announced Tuesday.

It said that the arrangements for the February 18-19 meeting had been finalised at the 31st meeting of the CARICOM Council of Ministers meeting here on Monday.

This will be the first time that Haiti will be host of a CARICOM summit. The French-speaking CARICOM country, which is recovering from a powerful January 12, 2010 earthquake that killed 300,000 people and left more than a million others homeless, assumed chairmanship of the 15-member grouping in January.

The Secretariat said the CARICOM Council of Ministers, the second highest decision-making organ within the grouping, also discussed the reform process within the Community.

It said that Trinidad and Tobago’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Dookeran made a presentation on a new thrust for the integration process.

The Secretariat said that plans to celebrate the 40th anniversary of CARICOM were also discussed as well as well as preparations for the region’s premier cultural festival, CARIFESTA X, I which will be held in Suriname August 16-25.