The Pres­i­dents of Guyana and Suri­name have in­struct­ed their re­spec­tive of­fi­cials to en­ter the next phase of the con­struc­tion of a bridge over the Coren­ti­jn/Coren­tyne Riv­er link­ing the two coun­tries.

A joint state­ment is­sued fol­low­ing week­end talks be­tween Pres­i­dents Dr Ir­faan Ali and his Suri­namese coun­ter­part, Chan­drikaper­sad San­tokhi not­ed that the of­fi­cials will now en­gage in “dis­cus­sions on prices, tech­ni­cal as­pects, fi­nanc­ing and op­er­a­tional modal­i­ties with the com­mon goal of op­ti­miz­ing af­ford­abil­i­ty and con­ces­sion­al­i­ty”.

It added that ex­perts from both coun­tries “will al­so joint­ly work to­wards a po­lit­i­cal and le­gal frame­work, launch the ten­der process for su­per­vi­sion and draw up the agree­ment on the fi­nal ad­min­is­tra­tion that will joint­ly man­age the bridge”.

The bridge is ex­pect­ed to cost an es­ti­mat­ed US$300 mil­lion and the state­ment said that both lead­ers “reaf­firmed the im­por­tance of this fixed link be­tween their two neigh­bours in the broad­er con­text of South Amer­i­can con­nec­tiv­i­ty, as part of the over­all ob­jec­tive of re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and tri­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Suri­name, Guyana and Brazil”.

It said both Satokhi and Ali wel­comed the ex­pres­sions of sat­is­fac­tion of the Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Luis Igna­cio Lu­la da Sil­va, dur­ing the re­cent­ly held tri­lat­er­al sum­mit in Guyana re­gard­ing the bridge over the Coren­tyne/Coren­tyne Riv­er.

”From a bi­lat­er­al per­spec­tive, the Pres­i­dents of Suri­name and Guyana rec­og­nized the im­por­tance of the his­toric and friend­ly re­la­tions be­tween the peo­ples and gov­ern­ments of both coun­tries. It was fur­ther rec­og­nized that both coun­tries are cur­rent­ly poised to be­come ma­jor play­ers in en­er­gy and food se­cu­ri­ty in this re­gion.

”Es­tab­lish­ing a fixed link be­tween the two neigh­bour­ing coun­tries will un­doubt­ed­ly in­crease the flow of peo­ple, strength­en agri­cul­tur­al co­op­er­a­tion, fa­cil­i­tate trade and in­vest­ment and pro­mote tourism, there­by con­tribut­ing in a di­ver­si­fied man­ner to eco­nom­ic growth that is ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er sus­tain­able pros­per­i­ty for both the Suri­namese and Guyanese pop­u­la­tion,” the state­ment added.

It said that clear time­lines have been es­tab­lished for the com­ple­tion of these ac­tiv­i­ties and that the team of three min­is­ters on each side will con­tin­ue their work to lead these ne­go­ti­a­tions and da­ta col­lec­tion, mon­i­tor progress and re­port reg­u­lar­ly to the heads of state of both gov­ern­ments.

”Pres­i­dent San­tokhi and Pres­i­dent Ali agreed to con­vene the Plat­form for Strate­gic Di­a­logue and Co­op­er­a­tion (SD­CP) in ear­ly May 2024 to ex­pand con­sul­ta­tions to oth­er pend­ing rel­e­vant ar­eas of strate­gic im­por­tance on the agen­da be­tween the two coun­tries,” the joint state­ment added.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Mar 25, CMC

CMC/gt/ir/2024