At its first board meet­ing of 2025, Trinidad and To­ba­go as­sumed the Chair­man­ship of the Board of Di­rec­tors of CAF – De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Vish­nu Dhan­paul will serve a one-year term, dur­ing which he will pre­side over all meet­ings of the board. Min­is­ter Dhan­paul will suc­ceed Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and Econ­o­my of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, José Manuel Vi­cente. T&T was rep­re­sent­ed by the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Has­sel Bac­chus.

Bac­chus stat­ed, “CAF is a key play­er in shap­ing our coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment and has been, for a long time, our largest mul­ti­lat­er­al part­ner. It is an ho­n­our to be the first Eng­lish speak­ing Caribbean coun­try to as­sume the chair­man­ship of the Board of Di­rec­tors at CAF, at a time con­comi­tant to the Bank’s ef­fort to in­cor­po­rate new Caribbean Coun­tries as part­ners and share­hold­ers.”

At the board meet­ing, CAF ap­proved $US1.45 bil­lion to fi­nance strate­gic projects in the re­gion rang­ing from the con­struc­tion of aque­ducts and port works to im­prove­ments in ur­ban mo­bil­i­ty, ed­u­ca­tion sys­tems, and busi­ness com­pet­i­tive­ness. CAF al­so an­nounced fi­nanc­ing of USD 8.5 bil­lion un­til 2030 to boost agri­cul­tur­al pros­per­i­ty in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.