The Caribbean Postal Union (CPU) is an association established by treaty of the postal authorities of the following member countries: [1] [2] The bloc was established with the assistance of the European Union for member-states of CARIFORUM as part of the bloc of the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States.
It was founded in 1997 as a restricted union of the Universal Postal Union. [32]
In 2000 it was decided by the union's members in attendance for the CPU to be headquartered in Castries, Saint Lucia. Therein is the secretariat for the regional coordinator for the Universal Postal Union and the technical officer for the Caribbean Postal Union.
In 2022 the CPU formed a think tank with the goal to improve transport of mail throughout the Caribbean.
Decisions by the union are undertaken by the bloc's annual meetings.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sometimes known simply as Saint Vincent or SVG, is an island country in the eastern Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies, at the southern end of the eastern border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. To the north lies Saint Lucia, to the east is Barbados, and Grenada lies to the south.
The Caribbean Community is an intergovernmental organisation that is a political and economic union of 15 member states and five associated members throughout the Americas, The Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean. It has the primary objective to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and coordinate foreign policy. The organisation was established in 1973, by its four founding members signing the Treaty of Chaguaramas. Its primary activities involve:
The British West Indies (BWI) were the territories in the West Indies under British rule, including Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, British Honduras, British Guiana and Trinidad and Tobago.
The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States is an inter-governmental organisation dedicated to economic harmonisation and integration, protection of human and legal rights, and the encouragement of good governance between countries and territories in the Eastern Caribbean. It also performs the role of spreading responsibility and liability in the event of natural disaster.
The Commonwealth Caribbean is the region of the Caribbean with English-speaking countries and territories, which once constituted the Caribbean portion of the British Empire and are now part of the Commonwealth of Nations. The term includes many independent island nations, British Overseas Territories and some mainland nations.
Hinduism is the leading single religion of the Indo-Caribbean communities of the West Indies. Hindus are particularly well represented in Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. The Cayman Islands also hosts a sizable Hindu population, with 2.4 percent of the country affiliating with the religion. Smaller groups of Indo-Caribbeans live elsewhere in the Caribbean, especially Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Belize, Barbados, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, and Bahamas.
The Caribbean-Canada Trade Agreement known as ("CARIBCAN") is a Canadian government programme established under the Customs Tariff Act, in 1986 by the Parliament of Canada. The agreement was created to promote trade, investment and provide industrial cooperation through the preferential access of duty-free goods from the countries of the Commonwealth-Caribbean to the Canadian market.
The 2005 Caribbean Cup was the thirteenth edition of the Caribbean Cup hosted by Barbados and won by Jamaica. In all, 30 countries were invited, of which, 22 participated and 8 withdrew.
The Regional Security System (RSS) is an international agreement for the defence and security of the eastern Caribbean region with future expansion planned with South America.
Cricket West Indies (CWI) is the governing body for cricket in the West Indies. It was originally formed in the early 1920s as the West Indies Cricket Board of Control, but changed its name to West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) in 1996. In November 2015, the Board resolved to rename itself as Cricket West Indies as part of a restructuring exercise that would also see the creation of a separate commercial body. This rebranding formally occurred in May 2017.
The Latin American Table Tennis Union (LATTU), or Unión Latinoamericana de Tenis de Mesa (ULTM) in Spanish, was one of the table tennis continental federations recognized by International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) before 2021. The ULTM was composed of 37 national or regional table tennis associations, working on the development of table tennis in Latin America.
The Caribbean Select rugby union team are an inter-island sporting side with players coming from Trinidad & Tobago (T&T), Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, representing them at rugby union. The side first played in 2010.
The languages of the Caribbean reflect the region's diverse history and culture. There are six official languages spoken in the Caribbean:
The Barbados Postal Service (B.P.S.) is the national postal operator of Barbados and operates as a department within the Government of Barbados where it reports to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Barbados Postal Service (B.P.S.) is headed by the acting Postmaster General, Sheila Greaves, who is responsible for maintaining the island’s postal services, subject to the laws of the island. In 1852, the Postal services for Barbados were reconstituted following the passage of local legislation enabling the delivery of inland postage.
In 2012, the government of Trinidad and Tobago approved the introduction of postal codes starting later that same year. In addition to the postal code implementation the country has embarked on a nationwide address improvement initiative adopting the Universal Postal Union (UPU) S-42 international standard of addressing. The UPU is an arm of the United Nations and is the coordinating body of postal services worldwide. The intent of this exercise is to correct poor addressing in Trinidad & Tobago and assign to each address a six-digit postal code. This change will result in the following:
The Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) is an intergovernmental organization established by CARICOM in 1989, to facilitate development of the telecommunications sector in the Caribbean.