Gail Alexan­der

Cari­com lead­ers have en­dorsed and en­cour­aged par­tic­i­pa­tion in an Agri-In­vest­ment Fo­rum to be held in T&T from Au­gust 19-21.

This was in­di­cat­ed in Cari­com’s com­mu­nique at the end of the 43rd Cari­com sum­mit in Suri­name on Tues­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne at­tend­ed the sum­mit.

Row­ley al­so spoke about the meet­ing at Thurs­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

Guyana’s Di­rec­tor of Trade, In­vest­ment and Agri­cul­ture Gan­ga Singh said the up­com­ing fo­rum is a fol­low-up to the Agri-In­vest­ment Fo­rum which Guyana held in May.

Row­ley at­tend­ed that event.

Guyana holds the lead in Cari­com on re­gion­al food se­cu­ri­ty—a pri­or­i­ty agen­da item at the re­cent 43rd Cari­com sum­mit.

Singh not­ed con­sis­tent fol­low-up and co-op­er­a­tion on the Guyana fo­rum ini­tia­tive.

He cit­ed the re­cent vis­it to Guyana of T&T Min­is­ters in Agri­cul­ture Nigel de Fre­itas and Avinash Singh, Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings and oth­er T&T of­fi­cials.

Singh added: “This up­com­ing Agri In­vest­ment fo­rum in T&T will fur­ther ex­pand the re­gion­al food se­cu­ri­ty thrust in line with Guyana and Cari­com’s theme of re­duc­ing food im­ports by 25 per cent by 2025.”

The Guyana fo­rum iden­ti­fied ar­eas for pri­or­i­ty ac­tion: Food In­se­cu­ri­ty, Re­gion­al Trans­porta­tion, Trade Bar­ri­ers and Women and Youth in Agri­cul­ture. A Draft Terms of Ref­er­ence (TOR) was al­so de­vel­oped for the es­tab­lish­ment of a Re­gion­al Youth in Agri­cul­ture Ad­vi­so­ry Mech­a­nism.

This will as­sist in en­sur­ing youth par­tic­i­pa­tion and in­clu­sion in the 25 by 2025 food se­cu­ri­ty tar­get.

At the re­cent Cari­com sum­mit, lead­ers not­ed that a ma­jor­i­ty of mem­ber states have de­vel­oped and sub­mit­ted to the Min­is­te­r­i­al Task Force (MTF) on Food Pro­duc­tion and Food Se­cu­ri­ty, their na­tion­al tar­gets. Mem­ber States are re­quest­ed to re­port month­ly.

The MTF has iden­ti­fied 19 po­ten­tial in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for dis­plac­ing ex­tra-re­gion­al agri-food im­ports among mem­ber states.

Lead­ers asked Cari­com’s pri­vate sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tion to ac­cel­er­ate the im­ple­men­ta­tion of its agri­cul­tur­al in­vest­ment projects.

At the Cari­com Sum­mit, lead­ers con­sid­ered the re­gion’s need for a sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hanced trans­porta­tion sys­tem that can bol­ster food se­cu­ri­ty and deep­en re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion. Row­ley had sug­gest­ed trans­port be ex­am­ined when he at­tend­ed the Guyana Agri-In­vest­ment Fo­rum.

Bar­ba­dos’s Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­ley pre­sent­ed an up­date on ad­vanced dis­cus­sions with the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, re­gard­ing sup­port for both a tra­di­tion­al fer­ry and fast fer­ry ser­vice for the re­gion. A re­lat­ed pro­pos­al from the cap­i­tal, Abu Dhabi, is be­ing await­ed.

Lead­ers re­quest­ed that the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) com­mence the pro­posed roadmap study on the fac­tors need­ed for suc­cess­ful­ly es­tab­lish­ing a fast fer­ry ser­vice for trans­porta­tion of agri­cul­tur­al pro­duce—with an ini­tial fo­cus on trade be­tween Guyana, T&T, Grena­da and Bar­ba­dos.

A work­ing group to pro­vide over­sight of the project in­cludes rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the gov­ern­ments of T&T, Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da and Guyana.

Af­ter a brief­ing on the se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion in the Com­mu­ni­ty from the Cari­com Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty, lead­ers agreed to ac­cept its rec­om­men­da­tions and to con­vene a meet­ing to ad­dress crime and vi­o­lence as a “pub­lic health” is­sue at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Lead­ers agreed to im­prove shar­ing of gun crime in­tel­li­gence with the re­gion­al gun crime unit and to strength­en the co-op­er­a­tion in shar­ing of in­tel­li­gence among mem­ber states’ law en­force­ment per­son­nel.

They agreed to in­crease fo­cus and in­vest­ment in en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, by util­is­ing and har­ness­ing hy­dro­car­bon re­sources in the re­gion to­wards re­duc­ing de­pen­den­cy on ex­ter­nal re­sources and sup­ply­ing the grow­ing glob­al needs aris­ing out of the Rus­sia-Ukraine con­flict.

They al­so agreed to pur­sue en­er­gy di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and se­cu­ri­ty through mak­ing use of sig­nif­i­cant as­sets in the re­gion, with im­me­di­ate ex­ist­ing ca­pac­i­ty in LNG and fer­tilis­er for agri­cul­ture.

They fur­ther agreed to de­vel­op the re­new­able en­er­gy sec­tor through build­ing in­fra­struc­ture to meet re­gion­al pow­er gen­er­a­tion needs.

In the con­text of the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship with the Unit­ed States, they agreed to urge for the re­moval of the sanc­tions on Venezuela to al­low for coun­tries in the re­gion to ben­e­fit from the Petro­Caribe ini­tia­tive and for progress on the ex­ploita­tion of cross-bor­der nat­ur­al gas fields be­tween T&T and Venezuela.