CUBAN president Fidel Castro was meeting with heads of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) in Barbados yesterday with the aim of signing multi-lateral agreements.

Bermuda is an associate member of Caricom, but the island was not represented at yesterday's summit, a spokeswoman for the Department of Communication & Information said yesterday.

With its status as a UK Overseas Territory, Bermuda's foreign affairs are the responsibility of Government House.

Deputy Governor Nick Carter said last night that he was unsure of whether any agreements made in Bridgetown would apply to Bermuda.

"My instinct is not," Mr. Carter said. "But I was not aware this meeting was taking place and I'm not a legal expert."

Mr. Carter added that he would be checking tomorrow with the British High Commission in Barbados to clarify exactly what had been agreed.

Mr. Castro flew in to Bridgetown on Wednesday evening under heavy security. He was there for Caricom-Cuba Day, which was staged yesterday to celebrate ties between the Communist island and some of its Caribbean neighbours.

The occasion commemorates the decision made in 1972 by the leaders of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba. St. Kitts & Nevis also established diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1995.

Links between Cuba and Caricom are significant. While the US has maintained a 43-year-old economic, trade and financial embargo against Cuba, trade between the island and Caricom has boomed.

Trade has rocketed from an estimated $8 million in the early 1980s to $56 million in 2004. Improving trade relations, as well as sporting and cultural links, were on the agenda at yesterday's summit.

President Castro's trip to Barbados was his tenth visit to the Caricom region.

Outside of the summit sessions, President Castro laid a wreath at the monument in St. James parish dedicated by the Barbados Government to the 73 victims of the terrorist bombing of a Cuban passenger aircraft off the Barbados coast on October 6, 1976.