Gail Alexan­der

Deep­er ties be­tween T&T and Guyana are ahead on agri­cul­ture, en­er­gy and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who ar­rived in Guyana yes­ter­day for an Agri-In­vest­ment Ex­po, met im­me­di­ate­ly with Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali and both pledged to deep­en ties be­tween the coun­tries.

This was con­firmed via in­for­ma­tion from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM), which an­nounced Row­ley’s de­par­ture yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Last night, the OPM said Row­ley ar­rived in Guyana and was re­ceived at the Eu­gene F. Cor­reia In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port by the Prime Min­is­ter of Guyana Mark Phillips and Guyana’s Min­is­ter of Nat­ur­al Re­sources Vick­ram Bhar­rat.

The OPM said Row­ley al­so met with Pres­i­dent Ali at the State House in George­town.

The OPM added, “The two lead­ers en­gaged in broad, ex­ten­sive bi­lat­er­al talks and pledged to deep­en ties be­tween Guyana and Trinidad and To­ba­go. The dis­cus­sions fo­cused specif­i­cal­ly on agri­cul­ture, en­er­gy and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. A Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing cov­er­ing these key ar­eas is be­ing fi­nalised.”

Present at the meet­ing was Guyana’s Se­nior Min­is­ter with­in the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Fi­nance, Dr Ash­ni Singh; Guyana’s Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Zul­fikar Mustapha and oth­er Cab­i­net Min­is­ters.

Al­so present were T&T For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein and Min­is­ter in the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry Avinash Singh.

The Agri Fo­rum and Ex­po in George­town be­tween to­mor­row and Sat­ur­day was agreed to at a re­cent Cari­com lead­ers’ In­ter-Ses­sion­al Con­fer­ence. Guyana holds Cari­com’s food se­cu­ri­ty port­fo­lio.

Cari­com said the meet­ing is to fa­cil­i­tate in­tense con­sul­ta­tions be­tween the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors on in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties. It is part of a wider plan as the re­gion­al body ad­vances ef­forts to re­duce the Caribbean’s mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar food im­port bill by 25 per cent by 2025.

The theme of the fo­rum is In­vest­ing in Vi­sion 25 by 2025.

Guyana’s Agri­cul­ture Min­istry yes­ter­day said more than a dozen donor agen­cies and 250 ex­hibitors are ex­pect­ed at the event. Donor agen­cies are ex­pect­ed to work with Cari­com states to dis­cuss op­tions and in­ter­ests.

Mark­ing Row­ley’s vis­it to Guyana, Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day al­so an­nounced that Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny chair­man Con­rad Enill has been ap­point­ed as T&T’s High Com­mis­sion­er to Guyana. Browne pre­sent­ed Enill with his In­stru­ment of Ap­point­ment yes­ter­day.

The Min­istry said Enill has con­sid­er­able ex­pe­ri­ence in en­er­gy, fi­nance and busi­ness, hav­ing served as Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (2007-2010); Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance (2001-2006) and Se­nior Lec­tur­er, Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness, MBA En­er­gy and Fi­nance Pro­gramme, UWI (2011-2022).

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