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Chair­man of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM), Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley has wel­comed the launch of the Caribbean Re­gion­al Lo­gis­tics Hub and Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence say­ing it will sig­nif­i­cant­ly strength­en the re­gion’s abil­i­ty to re­spond quick­ly to dis­as­ters and hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises.

Mot­t­ley, the Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter, told the cer­e­mo­ny at the Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port that Bar­ba­dos is an ide­al lo­ca­tion for the hub giv­en that it “is the most east­er­ly, [there­fore] a judg­ment was made that this is prob­a­bly the safest place.

“If you have to wait on stuff to come from Pana­ma, that’s 1200 miles away. If you have to bring stuff from Mi­a­mi, 1500 miles away,”  she said, not­ing that the pri­ma­ry func­tion would be to get food, med­i­cine and crit­i­cal sup­plies to af­fect­ed pop­u­la­tions with­in the first 48 to 72 hours af­ter a ma­jor emer­gency.