Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley con­clud­ed a high-lev­el work­ing meet­ing in Cara­cas on Mon­day with Venezuela's Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, with both lead­ers agree­ing to deep­en the long­stand­ing ties of friend­ship, co­op­er­a­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty be­tween their coun­tries.

Ac­cord­ing to a joint de­c­la­ra­tion is­sued fol­low­ing the talks, the lead­ers re­viewed pri­or­i­ty ar­eas of co­op­er­a­tion and iden­ti­fied en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture, fish­eries, ed­u­ca­tion, cul­ture and tourism as key dri­vers of de­vel­op­ment, sup­port­ed by ex­pand­ed trade and trans­porta­tion links.

En­er­gy Co­op­er­a­tion

In the area of en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, Bar­ba­dos and Venezuela com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing com­mer­cial ex­change and train­ing in en­er­gy and hy­dro­car­bons, while ex­pand­ing trade in hy­dro­car­bons and pe­tro­le­um prod­ucts.

The agree­ment in­cludes ini­tia­tives to pro­vide tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance and spe­cialised train­ing for Bar­ba­di­an per­son­nel in Venezuela, par­tic­u­lar­ly in land ex­plo­ration and field re­cov­ery tech­niques.

The two coun­tries al­so agreed to es­tab­lish a tech­ni­cal work­ing group to mon­i­tor im­ple­men­ta­tion of the agree­ments and ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties for co­op­er­a­tion and in­vest­ment in re­new­able en­er­gy projects and re­lat­ed in­fra­struc­ture.

Food Se­cu­ri­ty and Agri­cul­ture

Recog­nis­ing the im­por­tance of food se­cu­ri­ty, both gov­ern­ments agreed on sev­er­al ini­tia­tives aimed at re­duc­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to ex­ter­nal shocks and strength­en­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion in agri­cul­ture and fish­eries.

A joint work plan will be de­vel­oped be­tween the agri­cul­ture min­istries of both coun­tries to ad­dress cli­mate change, pro­mote re­silient agri­cul­tur­al sys­tems, im­prove live­stock man­age­ment, en­hance soil health and sup­port re­search and de­vel­op­ment through spe­cialised tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion.

The coun­tries al­so agreed on a bi­lat­er­al pro­to­col gov­ern­ing ex­port and im­port re­quire­ments for meat prod­ucts. The arrange­ment is ex­pect­ed to im­prove com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween agri­cul­tur­al au­thor­i­ties, en­sure pol­i­cy align­ment, strength­en da­ta-shar­ing mech­a­nisms and en­hance cri­sis man­age­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Bar­ba­dos and Venezuela will ex­plore joint in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties in fish­eries, fo­cus­ing on pro­cess­ing, val­ue-added prod­ucts, lo­gis­tics and knowl­edge trans­fer. They will al­so ex­am­ine in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties in agri­cul­tur­al lands to boost pro­duc­tion, strength­en food se­cu­ri­ty and ex­pand eco­nom­ic prospects.

Ed­u­ca­tion and Cul­tur­al Ex­change

To ad­vance ed­u­ca­tion­al and cul­tur­al co­op­er­a­tion, the two na­tions will cre­ate a work­ing group com­pris­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from their re­spec­tive Min­istries of Ed­u­ca­tion.

The ini­tia­tive will pro­mote lan­guage train­ing pro­grammes for stu­dents from preschool to ter­tiary lev­el, as well as for teach­ers and pro­fes­sion­als.

Both coun­tries al­so agreed to ex­pand stu­dent ex­change op­por­tu­ni­ties in Span­ish and Eng­lish lan­guage stud­ies, mu­sic, the arts, sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy, pub­lic health, sports, hy­dro­car­bons, agri­cul­ture and fish­eries.

Schol­ar­ship pro­grammes are ex­pect­ed to be in­tro­duced in agreed pri­or­i­ty ar­eas, with pi­lot ini­tia­tives sched­uled to be­gin dur­ing the 2027-2028 aca­d­e­m­ic year.

The de­c­la­ra­tion al­so calls for the de­vel­op­ment of a Mu­tu­al Recog­ni­tion Agree­ment to fa­cil­i­tate the recog­ni­tion of ed­u­ca­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions and train­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in both coun­tries.

Tourism and Con­nec­tiv­i­ty

In the tourism sec­tor, Bar­ba­dos and Venezuela agreed to sign a bi­lat­er­al tourism agree­ment with­in the com­ing weeks aimed at in­creas­ing vis­i­tor ar­rivals and strength­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion be­tween tour op­er­a­tors.

The agree­ment will sup­port reg­u­lar busi­ness match­mak­ing events, the de­vel­op­ment of mul­ti-des­ti­na­tion tourism pack­ages, spe­cialised train­ing pro­grammes and ini­tia­tives in shop­ping and well­ness tourism.

Bar­ba­dos' Min­is­ter of Tourism is ex­pect­ed to vis­it Cara­cas with­in the next four months to ad­vance the sec­tor's work plan. The two coun­tries al­so agreed to es­tab­lish per­ma­nent tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion mech­a­nisms fo­cused on shar­ing best prac­tices and de­vel­op­ing cli­mate-re­silient tourism in­fra­struc­ture.

The first Bar­ba­dos-Venezuela Bi­na­tion­al Tourism Meet­ing is sched­uled for 2027 and will fo­cus on strength­en­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween tour op­er­a­tors and or­gan­is­ing fa­mil­iari­sa­tion trips for key tourism stake­hold­ers and spe­cialised me­dia.

Look­ing ahead to the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of air and mar­itime trans­port and the re­open­ing of Mai­quetía In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, both gov­ern­ments agreed to co­or­di­nate car­go trans­porta­tion arrange­ments, fa­cil­i­tate com­mer­cial ex­changes and es­tab­lish di­rect mar­itime car­go ser­vices.

They al­so pledged to pro­mote the Bridgetown-Por­la­mar-Cara­cas com­mer­cial route and po­si­tion both coun­tries as re­gion­al tran­sit hubs with links to Eu­rope and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

Bi­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion

To en­sure con­tin­ued co­op­er­a­tion, Mot­t­ley and Ro­dríguez agreed to es­tab­lish a Bi­na­tion­al Joint Com­mis­sion that will meet an­nu­al­ly, al­ter­nat­ing be­tween Bridgetown and Cara­cas, to ad­dress mat­ters of mu­tu­al in­ter­est and over­see im­ple­men­ta­tion of bi­lat­er­al ini­tia­tives.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, Mot­t­ley ex­pressed con­do­lences to Ro­dríguez for the vic­tims of the June 24, 2026 seis­mic dou­blet in Venezuela and wished the coun­try a speedy re­cov­ery.

Ro­dríguez thanked Bar­ba­dos for its swift as­sis­tance fol­low­ing the dis­as­ter, in­clud­ing the de­ploy­ment of res­cue teams, hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid and the es­tab­lish­ment of a field hos­pi­tal in Guare­nas, Mi­ran­da State, which has treat­ed more than 2,600 Venezue­lans.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Aug. 25, CMC

CMC/ah/ir/2026