Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and oth­er re­gion­al lead­ers met with US Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris to­day, to dis­cuss mat­ters re­lat­ed to en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, fi­nance and food se­cu­ri­ty. 

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, since June near­ly a dozen tech­ni­cal and high-lev­el meet­ings have been held to for­mu­late ac­tion plans in the ar­eas of en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, fi­nance and food se­cu­ri­ty. 

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Of­fice of the Priem Min­is­ter:  

Prime Min­is­ter Dr the Hon. Kei­th Row­ley joined oth­er re­gion­al lead­ers at a meet­ing with US Vice Pres­i­dent, Ka­mala Har­ris to­day (Thurs­day 15th Sep­tem­ber, 2022) in Wash­ing­ton, DC. 

The CARI­COM lead­ers had open dis­cus­sions with Vice Pres­i­dent Har­ris on mat­ters re­lat­ed to the top­ics of en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, fi­nance and food se­cu­ri­ty, all of which are close­ly in­te­grat­ed. 

With re­spect to en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, the po­ten­tial of the hy­dro­car­bon re­sources in the re­gion was dis­cussed with a fo­cus on how these re­sources can be part of the so­lu­tion to the cur­rent glob­al dif­fi­cul­ties. 

At the IX Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as in Los An­ge­les in June, the US, CARI­COM and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic agreed to the es­tab­lish­ment of three High-Lev­el Ac­tion Com­mit­tees, to de­vel­op near-term so­lu­tions to three chal­lenges in the re­gion. 

Since June near­ly a dozen tech­ni­cal and high-lev­el meet­ings have been held to for­mu­late ac­tion plans in the ar­eas of en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, fi­nance and food se­cu­ri­ty. 

To­day's meet­ing al­so fo­cused on re­view­ing progress to date in these crit­i­cal ac­tion ar­eas. 

Con­cern­ing en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, the US Gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted to de­vel­op­ing tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance pack­ages to pre­pare vi­able en­er­gy projects that are at­trac­tive to in­vestors, host­ing an en­er­gy pro­cure­ment ori­en­ta­tion vis­it and a re­gion­al trade mis­sion for Caribbean of­fi­cials. 

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley is the co-chair of the en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty com­mit­tee. Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Hon Stu­art Young ac­com­pa­nied the Prime Min­is­ter to the meet­ing. 

The re­gion was al­so rep­re­sent­ed at the meet­ing by CARI­COM Chair­man, Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Suri­name His Ex­cel­len­cy, Chan­drikaper­sad San­tokhi, Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos, the Hon Mia Mot­t­ley co-chair of the fi­nance com­mit­tee; Pres­i­dent of the Co-op­er­a­tive Re­pub­lic of Guyana, His Ex­cel­len­cy, Dr Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali co-chair of the food se­cu­ri­ty com­mit­tee. 

His Ex­cel­len­cy, Pres­i­dent Luis Abi­nad­er of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic was al­so present. 

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley and Min­is­ter Young al­so met to­day with David Turk, US Deputy Sec­re­tary of En­er­gy at the US De­part­ment of En­er­gy to progress dis­cus­sions re­lat­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor.