Commonwealth Secretary-General to visit Cyprus

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma will visit Cyprus from 30 September to 2 October 2009 on the occasion of a Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting to be held in Limassol on 1-2 October.

According to a press release issued by the Commonwealth Secretariat, in the sidelines of the visit, the Secretary-General will also be received by the President of the Republic of Cyprus Demetris Christofias and other political leaders.

Speaking ahead of the visit, the Secretary-General said that the meeting comes at a critical time, ahead of the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank that will take place in Turkey a few days later, and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago in November 2009.

''There is a real expectation about the meeting, partly born of the backdrop of global economic turbulence in which it takes place, and the recognition that we can only come through it if we act together,'' Sharma said.

''A year ago, when our Finance Ministers last met in St Lucia, the world was entering into deep recession. Most would agree that it is still deep in it – and that its residual effects will be all the worse for the smaller, weaker, poorer countries without either the institutions or the economic resilience to weather its storms,'' Sharma concluded.