Trinidad and Guyana Seeking Closer Cooperation on New Initiatives
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana Thursday sought to further deepen their existing relations as the two CARICOM countries rolled out a menu of items ranging from energy to tourism as well as agriculture on which they said they would seek to become “global” players collectively.
Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley (CMC Photo)“Things are happening and there are commitments at the level of the cabinets,” Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley told a news conference, attended by Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali, who is on an official State visit to the twin island Republic.
Rowley said that the technical teams in energy from Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago will meet specifically and by the end of September “will produce for us a document with recommendations to be considered by these three governments in the context of our collaboration with the United States on this whole issue of regional energy security and the role our God given resources and our human capital would play in creating and establishing a sustainable energy output from this part of the Caribbean”.
Rowley said that during their deliberations on Thursday, “we spoke about agriculture, tourism, and youth development mainly in agriculture.
‘Outside of our region on energy, we are working closely and collaborating with the United States on energy and agriculture,” said Rowley, who is co-chairing the US-Caribbean energy initiative, with President Ali co-chairing agriculture and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the co-chair on finance.
“These are three areas we are working very closely and that arose out of our attendance at the Summit of the Americas (held in the US earlier this year) where CARICOM as a body took the position that we are not here for a photo-op, we are here to solve our problems….”
President Ali told reporters that Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica are working on strategies to develop a sustainable pathway “to bring prosperity, opportunities to advance the interest of the peoples” of the two CARICOM countries.
President Dr. Irfaan Ali, speaking at news conference in Trinidad (CMC Photo)
‘We are not here to create an environment in which one party sees themselves as winners. We are here to work and creating and advancing institutions and systems that will create a win-win environment for all those who are willing and ready to participate in the development and advancement of both countries”.
Ali said that the current world situation is one of many challenges including energy and food security, climate change as well as financing.
“Those are key issues that the world faces today that we must grapple with. We are not an island on to ourselves, we are part of a global community. The war in Ukraine is far away from us, but its consequences is right with us,” Ali said, noting also how the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had impacted the Caribbean and the wider global community.
“We the people of this region…particularly the people of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana must understand that we live in this global context and unless we are ready and willing today to make hard decisions that will allow us to confront the challenges in this global environment and to build systems and create an environment in which we will develop the necessary capacity to confront these global challenges then we will not be leaving a sustainable pathway for the development and prosperity of our people…”.
Ali said in acknowledgement of this fact, the two CARICOM countries have “committed ourselves to advancing a series of action that must position these two countries as leaders in all of these global problems.
“So we want to become leaders in a problematic situation. We have the capacity with Suriname to be leaders on the table in the discussions on energy security. We have advanced this with the region, more recently, with the United States Energy Department.
“Similarly on climate change, we are the least contributors, but the most significantly affected. In Guyana we have 19.5 gigatons of carbon…If we deploy this asset with the blue economy and look at what we are doing in both countries in preserving the environment, we can be part of a solution in relation to climate change.
“We will be part of providing global leadership on food security,” Ali said, noting that Trinidad and Tobago has a “very sophisticated manufacturing, agro-processing industry (and) you already have the advantage in terms of the cost of energy.
“What we working now on building the productive capacity to ensure that the input is there to optimize the production,” he said, adding “that is why we are trying to bring every single stakeholder on the table.
“The distributors of this region must be part of the answer. We have to re-engineer (and develop) a reversal of the production supply chain in terms of food. The potential that exist in Brazil, we have to deploy that potential to the benefit of Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and CARICOM. So these are the types of discussions we are having,” Ali said.
Ali’s state visit coincides with the second CARICOM Agri-Fest and Investment Forum that opens here on Friday and will be attended by at least nine CARICOM leaders, who will be assessing the progress made since they participated in the inaugural CARICOM Agri-Investment Forum and Expo held in Guyana in May.
The meeting in Port of Spain will also provide an opportunity for talks with Republic Bank on a number of proposals that Guyana has worked on with a number of other CARICOM countries.
The forum and exposition in Trinidad will be held under the theme “Transforming Agriculture through Innovation and Investment’.
Ali said that both Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana want to create products “and we are not only speaking about things in theory or abstract.
“We are speaking about functional things, practical things that are going to pursue and you will see the results of…things that are actionable that will bring a direct impact on the population.”
The two countries have also agreed on establishing a task force that would be looking at the relationship between the two countries and examining “what are the issues that affect the efficient movement of goods into Guyana, into Trinidad and Tobago…and how we resolve these issues.
“How do we ensure that the mechanisms are in place to resolve it in a sustainable way that is what the task force is doing,” Ali told reporters.
