With a plan seemingly emerging for the re-fashioning of a Caribbean economy built largely around Guyana’s new-found ongoing emergence as an oil & gas ‘power’ in the hemisphere, President Irfaan Ali has disclosed that his administration is seeking to collaborate with the United Arab Emirates on the creation of a logistics hub for the region.
President Ali and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, would appear to be emerging as the leaders in the region in the push to create a new architecture to take account of the envisaged fashioning of the region as a strategic investment hub. In his address to the Dubai Caribbean Export forum, President Ali announced that Mottley was scheduled to travel to the United Arab Emirates to help in the fashioning of an initiative known as the ‘Sea Bridge’ that will help form the architecture of the envisaged trade and investment hub.
Specifically, these projects are intended to facilitate the movement of people, goods and services, across the Caribbean, a goal which for various reasons, has eluded the region for decades. Contextually, President Ali sought to provide assurances that every country in the region stands “committed to providing an incentive mechanism to support this logistics and transportation model.”
Noting that the Caribbean will never be able to realise some of its cherished goals “unless we fix the problem of logistics and transportation,” President Ali said that that the pursuit of the ‘sea bridge’ and other initiatives designed to create closer links among Caribbean territories also “presents a major opportunity for investors,” noting that the initiative is reflective of the fact that every country in the Caribbean is on a transformative infrastructural drive.
Meanwhile, the President shared with his audience in Dubai the fact that Guyana and Suriname were now addressing the issue of bridging the Corentyne River. “We are now talking about building a bridge between Guyana and Suriname. Suriname is looking to build a bridge between Suriname and French Guiana. We are looking at building infrastructure that will support the development within the region.”
In striking a posture that appeared to embrace the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as a whole, President Ali said that the regional integration movement had never been able to reap the rewards that ought to have accrued from the various trade and economic agreements that it had concluded over the years because it had largely failed in its efforts to infiltrate the larger markets. It was against this backdrop, the Guyanese president said that the Caribbean Export Showcase was being held in Dubai. “You have the capital, we have the environment, and we have the enabling infrastructure to get you into those markets based on the existing agreement.”
President Ali told the forum that Guyana was in the process of upgrading its infrastructure in order to position the country to take advantage of investments in the future, while articulating Guyana’s pursuit of forward movement through the use of renewable energy and long-term, investments.
Wednesday’s Global Business Forum LATAM was expected to be attended by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Colombian President Ivan Marquez.
