St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines  Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Ralph Gon­salves has as­sumed the chair­man­ship of the sub-re­gion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS), high­light­ing a num­ber of com­plaints about the larg­er Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) re­gion­al bloc.

Like St. Lu­cia Op­po­si­tion Leader, Allen Chas­tanet, had done dur­ing the meet­ing of the OECS As­sem­bly on Tues­day, Gon­salves said that to ad­dress some of these is­sues, the OECS may have to de­cou­ple from some el­e­ments of CARI­COM.

Chas­tanet had asked the OECS As­sem­bly, com­pris­ing gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion leg­is­la­tors from the nine-mem­ber group­ing, to con­sid­er what would hap­pen if the sub-re­gion­al group ex­it­ed CARI­COM and ne­go­ti­at­ed bi­lat­er­al agree­ments with the oth­er mem­bers.