8th CELAC Summit is taking place today in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 1 (ACN) Kingstown, capital of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, will gather today representatives of the 33 member countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), to participate at the 8th Summit of that regional coordination mechanism.

Cuba will be represented by its President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, who arrived in the host country on Thursday, at the head of a delegation that also includes Bruno Rodriguez, minister of foreign affairs, deputy minister Anayansi Rodriguez Camejo, and Cuba's ambassador to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Jose Manuel Leyva Ventura.

The event will be an opportunity for Member States to deepen dialogue, coordination and integration, and promote common interests for the benefit of the Latin American and Caribbean nations, Cuban foreign ministry stressed.

According to the Presidency of Cuba, the opening ceremony of the 8th Celac Summit will be held today, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines will present a report on its management of the pro tempore presidency of the Community, which it assumed from Argentina in January 2023, and will hand over to the Republic of Honduras.

This will be followed by an event marking the 10th anniversary of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, adopted at the organization's 2nd Summit in 2014, in Havana; and delegations are expected to adopt a Final Declaration.

The founding Summit of this coordination mechanism took place in December 2011 in Venezuela, when Army General Raul Castro, representing Cuba, defined this organization as "our most precious work", whose purpose is to consolidate a united and sovereign region, committed to a common destiny.

Since that date, Summits have been held in Chile (January, 2013), Havana (January, 2014), Costa Rica (January, 2015), Ecuador (January, 2016); Dominican Republic (January, 2017), Mexico (September, 2021), and Argentina (January, 2023).