Sau­di Ara­bia has pledged sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment in the Caribbean re­gion and sees the area as a “high pri­or­i­ty” busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ty for the King­dom. This in­cludes the pos­si­bil­i­ty of di­rect flights be­tween Sau­di Ara­bia and Caribbean na­tions.

This was the in­for­ma­tion com­mu­ni­cat­ed to sev­er­al Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) lead­ers, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who were host­ed at the in­au­gur­al Sau­di-Caribbean Sum­mit in Riyadh, Sau­di Ara­bia, yes­ter­day.

The sum­mit, which is be­ing de­scribed as a land­mark event with the pur­pose of strength­en­ing part­ner­ships and open­ing new av­enues for col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the re­gion and Sau­di Ara­bia, was host­ed by His Roy­al High­ness Prince Mo­hammed bin Salman bin Ab­du­laz­iz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Min­is­ter of Sau­di Ara­bia.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, this coun­try’s Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) said, “The high-lev­el meet­ing builds on the strate­gic al­liance be­tween the Caribbean na­tions and Sau­di Ara­bia and sig­nals a com­mit­ment by all par­ties to the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of an en­dur­ing re­la­tion­ship.”

The OPM added, “Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley al­so held bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions to­day with Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Prince Ab­du­laz­iz bin Salman, which fo­cused on op­por­tu­ni­ties for both coun­tries to work to­geth­er to cre­ate en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty for the re­gion.”

With re­spect to the re­gion, the OPM said agri­cul­ture and food se­cu­ri­ty, re­new­able en­er­gy, cli­mate change, fi­nance and tourism were among the ar­eas iden­ti­fied for col­lab­o­ra­tive at­ten­tion.

Mean­while, ac­cord­ing to Sau­di Ara­bia’s press, while ad­dress­ing the event, Sau­di Ara­bia’s Min­is­ter of Tourism, Ahmed Al-Kha­teeb, said, “The part­ner­ship be­tween the King­dom and Cari­com marks a new and ex­cit­ing chap­ter with the his­toric and im­por­tant in­au­gur­al Sau­di-Cari­com round­table meet­ing.”

Dur­ing the fo­rum, Sau­di Fund for De­vel­op­ment (SFD) CEO Sul­tan Ab­dul­rah­man Al-Mar­shad, said the SFD has been giv­ing long-term loans to Cari­com over the last 40 years, with over 25 projects in var­i­ous sec­tors, in­clud­ing ed­u­ca­tion, health and en­er­gy.

He said look­ing ahead, the SFD is will­ing to pri­ori­tise Cari­com’s de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties, with tech­ni­cal teams ready to be mo­bilised to the re­spec­tive coun­tries to eval­u­ate the de­vel­op­ment projects and help as­sist with prepa­ra­tion need­ed for loan ap­provals.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s meet­ing, two de­vel­op­men­tal mem­o­ran­da of un­der­stand­ing were signed with St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and St Kitts and Nevis.

The deal signed with St Vin­cent and the Grenadines in­volves pro­vid­ing $50 mil­lion for the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of sev­er­al pieces of in­fra­struc­ture dam­aged by nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.

In the sec­ond deal, the fund will al­lo­cate $40 mil­lion to the Needsmust Pow­er Plant ex­pan­sion project in St Kitts and Nevis. This ini­tia­tive is fo­cused on bol­ster­ing the en­er­gy sec­tor, im­prov­ing en­er­gy qual­i­ty and ac­cess to its peo­ple.

Mean­while, to fur­ther strength­en ties, Sau­di Ara­bia’s Min­is­ter of In­vest­ment, Khalid Al-Fal­ih, pledged to dis­cuss im­ple­ment­ing a di­rect flight be­tween his coun­try and Caribbean na­tions through the new es­tab­lished Riyadh Air air­line.

How­ev­er, Na­pari­ma MP and shad­ow For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Rod­ney Charles yes­ter­day called for “tan­gi­ble re­sults” from the “ex­pen­sive for­eign jaunts” Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were go­ing on.

In a re­lease, Charles al­leged that mil­lions in tax-free per diems are be­ing paid for the trav­el­ling del­e­ga­tion to Sau­di Ara­bia with “pre­cious lit­tle to show”.

“How many soft loans/grants will ben­e­fit T&T? How much for­eign di­rect in­vest­ments? How many more tourists, tech­nol­o­gy trans­fers, crime-fight­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions or well-pay­ing jobs cre­at­ed?” were some of the ques­tions Charles had for the Prime Min­is­ter.

Charles claimed that up to Sep­tem­ber 2022, the PM had racked up TT$1.5 mil­lion in tax free, for­eign trav­el per diems paid in US dol­lars.

“Ar­guably, T&T has ex­pe­ri­enced no sub­stan­tial ben­e­fits from these trips,” Charles posit­ed.

Charles said PM Row­ley needs to fol­low fel­low Cari­com lead­ers who, when they hold meet­ings with for­eign lead­ers, se­cure very tan­gi­ble trade, jobs and in­vest­ment achieve­ments for their cit­i­zens.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne and Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young ac­com­pa­nied the PM to the Riyadh sum­mit.