If for no other reason than the fact that both Guyana and neighboring Suriname are now attracting a significantly greater measure of regional and international attention than had been the case just a few years earlier, on account of their recent world class oil discoveries in their respective territorial waters, the October sixteenth annual offering of the Berbice Expo and Trade Fair usually hosted by the Central Corentyne Chamber of Commerce seems set to assume a deeper significance this year.
Earlier this week the Stabroek Business secured confirmation from the organizers that an invitation had been extended to its counterpart organization in Suriname to participate in the event. Assuming that the invitation is accepted the presence of a contingent of Surinamese business functionaries here will add a further significant dimension to the event.
If long-standing differences between Guyana and Suriname over the right of Guyanese fishermen to ply their trade in the Corentyne river have stubbornly persisted over decades, this often acrimonious blight on relations between CARICOM’s two South American member states has never managed to quite put a brake on what, historically, has been a high level of people to people relations including comings and goings between Guyanese and Surinamese ‘across the border’ for both business and pleasure. Indeed, while not a great deal is known about the programme for the event up to this time, it would hardly be surprising if it attracts the physical presence of high-level government officials from both Guyana and Suriname including, conceivably, the two Heads of Government.
Indeed, the significant recent cooling of bilateral relations between Georgetown and Paramaribo was more than adequately reflected in the recent flurry of cross-border contact, not least the high-profile visits to the respective capitals by Presidents Alli and Santoki. Those visits appeared to be the trigger for a wider opening up of a relationship between the two countries which, these days, appears very much to be focused on a mutual keenness to collaborate in pursuit of the maximizing their returns that promise to accrue from their new-found oil and gas resources, not just for their respective countries nut for the Caribbean Community as a whole.
Contextually, it should be noted that the visits to each other’s capitals by President Irfaan Ali and Chan Santoki, respectively and the subsequent lower level bilateral contact have had to do mostly with a recognition by Georgetown and Paramaribo that the discovery of huge deposits of oil in their respective territorial waters marks an unprecedented opening to the raising of their profiles at the levels of both CARICOM.
No less significant for both Guyana and Suriname has been the role that their respective oil discoveries have now play in enhancing their regional not just to energy security but also to CARICOM’s current priority pursuit of a twenty five per cent reduction in extra-regional food imports by 2025. Contextually, it is, it seems, hardly by accident, that this year’s Berbice Trade Fair and Expo is being staged under the theme “Advancing Food Security Through Agricultural Sustainability and Innovation,” a theme consistent with one of the Caribbean Community’s highest priorities at this time.
