Foreign Minister Heiko Maas will launch a Latin America and Caribbean initiative with the opening of a conference on the region in the Federal Foreign Office on 28 May. Twenty Foreign Ministers from Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as representatives of the business sector and civil society, are expected to attend the event at the Federal Foreign Office.
Foreign Minister Maas will open the conference in the Weltsaal at 9.30 a.m.
The following sessions will then be held. These events will be open to journalists.

•9.45 a.m.: Business partners. The panel will include the Mexican and Argentine Foreign Ministers, Joe Kaeser, President and CEO of Siemens AG, and Dr Reinhold Festge, Chairperson of the Latin America Initiative of German Business.
•10.00 a.m.: Presentation of the McKinsey report, “CEO Agenda for Germany’s Economic Cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean”. The panel will include Andreas Renschler, Chairperson of the Latin America Committee of German Business, Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank.
•11.30 a.m.: Great opportunities: The future and potential of relations between Germany and Latin America and the Caribbean. The panel will include Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Daniel Barenboim, Chief Conductor of the Staatskapelle Berlin.
•11.45 a.m.: Panel discussion on women’s rights. The panel will include Brazilian singer Xênia França, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Colombian Foreign Minister, Kamina Johnson-Smith, Jamaican Foreign Minister, and Veronica García, CEO of BitLumens, Guatemala.
•12.30 p.m.: Founding of the German-Latin American and Caribbean women’s network, UNIDAS
•2.00 p.m.: First meeting of the German-Latin American and Caribbean women’s network, UNIDAS

A detailed programme will follow.