New­ly-ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Pen­ne­lope Beck­les met with Chi­nese Am­bas­sador Fang Qui to dis­cuss how this coun­try can ben­e­fit from Chi­na’s Glob­al De­vel­op­ment Plan. Ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease from the Min­istry of Plan­ning the ini­tia­tive iden­ti­fied eight pri­or­i­ty ar­eas of co­op­er­a­tion and chart­ed fea­si­ble path­ways to ac­cel­er­ate the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the 2030 Agen­da which in­clud­ed pover­ty al­le­vi­a­tion, COVID-19 re­sponse and vac­cines, cli­mate change and green de­vel­op­ment.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment:

New­ly-ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, the Hon. Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, host­ed a cour­tesy meet­ing with His Ex­cel­len­cy Fang Qiu, Am­bas­sador of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na on Mon­day 21st March, 2022. Al­so at the meet­ing were the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Joanne De­o­raj, Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Marie Hinds and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Tech­ni­cal Cor­po­ra­tion Unit of the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment. The fo­cus of the meet­ing was to de­ter­mine how Trinidad and To­ba­go can ben­e­fit from The Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na’s Glob­al De­vel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive (GDI).

This ini­tia­tive iden­ti­fies eight pri­or­i­ty ar­eas of co­op­er­a­tion, and charts fea­si­ble path­ways to ac­cel­er­ate the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the 2030 Agen­da. The eight pri­or­i­ty ar­eas are:  pover­ty al­le­vi­a­tion, COVID-19 re­sponse and vac­cines, cli­mate change and green de­vel­op­ment, dig­i­tal econ­o­my, food se­cu­ri­ty, de­vel­op­ment fi­nance, in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and con­nec­tiv­i­ty. The dis­cus­sions high­light­ed po­ten­tial Tech­ni­cal Co­op­er­a­tion for Trinidad and To­ba­go in the ar­eas of dig­i­tal econ­o­my, food pro­duc­tion; ur­ban de­vel­op­ment, the blue econ­o­my, the es­tab­lish­ment of Green­house In­dus­tri­al Parks, and in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion.

Min­is­ter Beck­les took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­tend grat­i­tude and ap­pre­ci­a­tion on be­half of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Chi­na, for their kind do­na­tion of COVID-19 vac­cines, as the Vac­cines al­lowed us to reach a point where we are at a much bet­ter po­si­tion in the fight against the virus”. Both Gov­ern­ments un­der­scored the need for food se­cu­ri­ty in the cur­rent pre­vail­ing eco­nom­ic and oth­er glob­al con­di­tions. It is a fact that sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions and in­creas­es in the cost of raw ma­te­ri­als have fur­ther im­pact­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s food im­port bill. Min­is­ter Beck­les said, “The po­ten­tial for a col­lab­o­ra­tion in the area of agri­cul­ture could be ben­e­fi­cial for the re­duc­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s food bill, through com­mu­ni­ty agri­cul­ture pro­grammes and youth pro­grammes such as the Youth Agri­cul­tur­al Home­stead Pro­gramme (YAHP)”. 

His Ex­cel­len­cy, Fang Qiu stat­ed he is very con­fi­dent that some lev­el of sup­port will be forth­com­ing to as­sist the Gov­ern­ment in ad­di­tion to the al­ready ex­ist­ing part­ner­ship with the Chi­nese Gov­ern­ment in the area of agri­cul­ture and agro pro­cess­ing. Ex­pressed by the Chi­nese del­e­ga­tion, was the op­por­tu­ni­ty for train­ing via vir­tu­al cours­es along with a part­ner­ship agree­ment with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, in the dis­ci­pline of Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence. These train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties will pro­vide tech­ni­cal ad­vice on green­hous­es with the aim of hav­ing these de­ployed across the coun­try.

Both gov­ern­ments ex­pressed the height­ened need for re­li­able ICT In­fra­struc­ture to sup­port vir­tu­al learn­ing, bridge the dig­i­tal di­vide, in­crease pro­duc­tiv­i­ty lev­els while work­ing from home, and im­prove gov­ern­ment op­er­a­tions and ac­cess to e-Gov­ern­ment ser­vices. Min­is­ter Beck­les said, “The Glob­al De­vel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive (GDI) is time­ly and fits all pil­lars that ex­ist with­in the Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy.” Po­ten­tial projects pro­posed by the Min­istry’s team iden­ti­fied for Tech­ni­cal Co­op­er­a­tion in­clud­ed but were not lim­it­ed to: ex­pand­ing free Wi-Fi across the coun­try; im­proved on­line learn­ing, us­ing dig­i­tal text­books; build­ing an open-source repos­i­to­ry, and a new gov­ern­ment por­tal.

The po­ten­tial for col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Port Spain Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Project was al­so high­light­ed. Min­is­ter Beck­les stat­ed, “It is im­por­tant to es­tab­lish the city of Port of Spain as the brand of Trinidad and To­ba­go where it re­flects the lev­el of de­vel­op­ment the coun­try has achieved.” Am­bas­sador Fang Qiu, en­dorsed this view and ex­pressed his hopes to ex­pe­dite this project to en­hance Port of Spain. The Am­bas­sador al­so shared in­ter­est in sub­mit­ting a pro­pos­al for sup­port to­wards the Blue Econ­o­my in the ar­eas of ex­plo­ration, re­search and de­vel­op­ment, seafood pro­cess­ing, and tourism. Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary De­o­raj, in­di­cat­ed that the pro­pos­al is apt to­wards the work be­ing un­der­tak­en by the Min­istry in the sphere of en­vi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion.

The Chi­nese Gov­ern­ment’s Glob­al De­vel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive (GDI) is syn­er­gis­tic with the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy: Vi­sion 2030; it is al­so in keep­ing with the Road Map to Re­cov­ery Re­port. One of the key prin­ci­ples of the GDI is “no coun­try and no one should be left be­hind”. This key prin­ci­ple speaks di­rect­ly to Theme I of Vi­sion 2030 – ‘Putting Peo­ple First: Nur­tur­ing Our Great­est As­set’ and di­rect­ly im­pacts Themes I, II and IV. It al­so paves the path at­tain­ment of the Unit­ed Na­tion’s Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs).