Georgetown, April 28 (RHC) -- Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries say they will give urgent attention to a request from Cuba for additional preferential access to the market of the more developed countries of the 15-member CARICOM grouping, the Jamaica Observer reports.

A statement issued after the 40th Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) last weekend said that the meeting “agreed to review urgently outstanding requests from Cuba for additional preferential access to CARICOM More Developed Countries which will pave the way for a Joint Commission Meeting between the two sides to be held by July 2015.”

The statement gave no details of the request, but said that “special attention was paid to relations with Cuba” with ministers underlining “the strong bonds between CARICOM and Cuba,” and acknowledged Cuba's generous offer of duty-free access for a wide range of CARICOM products on the Cuban market.