Bahamas to ratify ACS Sustainable Tourism Convention
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| Published on Friday, June 29, 2007 |
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PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad: Minister of Tourism of the Bahamas, Neko Grant, inaugurated the 17th Meeting of the ACS Special Committee on Sustainable Tourism at the Association of Caribbean States Secretariat in Port of Spain, welcoming delegates to the Committee’s first meeting of the year and announcing the decision of the Government of the Bahamas to ratify the ACS Convention on the Sustainable Tourism Zone of the Caribbean (STZC).
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| Jasmin Garraway, Director of Sustainable Tourism of the ACS (at left), gives a warm welcome to Neko Grant, Minister of Tourism of the Bahamas, and Chairman of the ACS Special Committee on Sustainable Tourism |
Grant, who is also the newly appointed Chairman of the Special Committee on Tourism, in informing those present of the impending ratification, added that “as Chairman of the Special Committee on Sustainable Tourism, I am committed to working with Member States who have not yet ratified the Convention to ensure its entry into force.”
Addressing the meeting on behalf of the Secretary General, the Director of Sustainable Tourism of the ACS, Jasmin Garraway, expressed her satisfaction at the news of the impending ratification of the Tourism Convention on the part of the Bahamas, and congratulated the Minister both on this decisive step forward as relates to the STZC and on his new role as Chairman of the Special Committee on Tourism.
The Bahamas’ announcement of the deposit of the instrument of ratification of the STZC Convention is indeed welcome news, coming after the ACS Ministers’ declaration of the year 2007 as “The Year for the entry into force of the Main Legal Instruments of the ACS” at their 12th Ministerial Meeting held in Guatemala last January. At that time, the Ministers made a strong call for all Members and Associate Members who had not yet done so, to sign or ratify any legal instruments on which they have not yet acted.
All ACS legal instruments have been placed at the Permanent Representation of Colombia to the United Nations in New York until December 2007, to give Members and Associate Members the opportunity to sign them and proceed to ratify them soon afterwards. The Bahamas will therefore be depositing their Instrument of Ratification to Colombia’s Permanent Representation, bringing the number of ratifications of the STZC Convention to seven.
The Bahamas was elected Chairman of the Special Committee on Sustainable Tourism at the 12th Ordinary Meeting of the Ministerial Council Meeting in Guatemala, after having served as Vice Chairman of that Committee for 2 consecutive years. Neko will remain in Port of Spain until Friday, June 29, when the Meeting of the Special Committee on Tourism will come to a close. |
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