Prime Minister Patrick Manning says the economic crisis was not dealt with properly in the final declaration of the Fifth Summit of the Americas. Manning made the comment during Sunday’s news conference at the Diplomatic Centre, after he signed the Declaration of Port-of-Spain.

“Discussions and negotiations for this document began about a year-and-a-half to two years ago, when the world circumstances were very different from what they are today. “And the world economic crisis was not properly captured in the Declaration of Port-of-Spain.” He said the crisis developed at a time when negotiations were already at an advanced stage.

“It arrived at such a late stage of the deliberations that to have sought to comprehensively address it in that document would have been to put us in a position where there may have been no document at all.” Manning said they did discuss the issues which were raised recently during the G-20 Summit in London on April 1, and those issues were taken into account. “In fact, we have two of the leaders here that were at the G-20 meeting, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada and Felipe Calderon, President of Mexico,” Manning said.