This year’s early disclosure of the dates for the independent, youth-led World Food Forum, an independent, youth-led global network of partners facilitated by the Food and Agricul-ture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), from October 14-18 in Rome, reflects what unquestionably is the current preoccupation of the international community with restoring what, in many instances, are the thoroughly degraded bona fides of global food security.
Nothing, it seems, will deter Jamaica from joining the still modest CARICOM family of oil producers even as the three already “’signed up’ members”, of the wider global oil and gas community, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname continue, at their respective levels to press their respective energy sectors into becoming significant game changers for their economies.
2024 could be a particularly challenging year for the Caribbean, not only because of the common challenges associated with economies too fragile to meet the growing needs of the respective countries of the region, but, as well, on account of the ruinous effects of climate change, a phenomenon that manifests itself mostly in devastating natural disasters that wreak havoc on sectors that are directly connected to the physical infrastructure of the region, not least those sectors that are inextricably linked to survival and growth.
The Department of Public Information earlier this week reported that Guyana’s Minister within the Ministry of Works, Deodat Indar, “highlighted Guyana’s investment opportunities to investors at the recent Bilateral Chamber in Houston, Texas” staged “on the sidelines of the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC)” in Houston, Texas, in his capacity as Head of Delegation to the forum.
-Guyana radio station delivering results
(Trinidad Express) Guardian Media Ltd has reported a total comprehensive loss of $3 million for its first quarter ended March 31, 2024, further extending the group’s loss-making position from its previous financial year.
The fact that, notwithstanding the persistent ‘nudging’ by this newspaper, we have not heard ‘a peep’ out of the two ‘lead Heads’ nor their designated ‘minder ministers’ holding the respective relevant portfolios, has moved the matter of the regional Food Security Terminal into the realm of puzzlement and beyond that, has given rise to the speculation as to whether, in terms of the execution of what had been touted as a critical assignment for the region, and especially for the more vulnerable countries in the Community, something might not have ‘gone wrong’.
HAVANA, (Reuters) – The Cuban sugar harvest is winding down at the lowest tonnage since 1900, forcing the government to import and putting more pressure on its domestic rum, soft drink and pharmaceutical industries, according to official reports, two economists and a rum industry source.
RIO DE JANEIRO, (Reuters) – Brazil’s state-run oil firm Petrobras PETR4.SA must do a series of studies on the impact on Indigenous groups in the Amazon area of planned offshore drilling nearby in order to analyze the project’s viability, according to a federal agency and documents from government agencies.
The International Monetary Fund, IMF, says Antigua & Barbuda should increase its tax earnings, which at 16 per cent of revenue is just one percentage point below what the fund says is needed to support the country’s developmental needs.
(Jamaica Gleaner) The Trinidad & Tobago government on Monday said it has secured international compensation for the ongoing oil spill clean-up in Tobago, with early estimates putting the damage at US$20 million.
Even as Guyana, a still, substantively underdeveloped country, impatiently awaits the envisaged returns from what is now universally referred to as a ‘world class’ oil and gas sector, analysts are proffering their own separate prognoses of the extent to which the energy sector could shift the material foundations of a country that had, at one time, been characterised as a “Banana Republic.”
With a suddenness that has left the uninitiated ‘blinded’ like the deer in headlamps, the discovery of oil and the subsequent portents that the ‘find’ has for a rush of inward investment has compelled Guyana’s business community to raise its game, so to speak, to match the ‘force’ of what has become a tsunami of foreign investment interests such as the country has never before been prepared for.
In a statement which appears to point to concerns that Guyanese residing in the United States are being negatively impacted by ongoing political developments in Guyana, the Guyanese-American Chamber of Commerce (GACC) has expressed “grave concern” over what it says have been “calls for the boycott of some Guyanese-owned businesses in Brooklyn, New York, for having the President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, His Excellency Irfaan Ali, visit their business establishments recently.”
-while local Min. of Agriculture ‘more markets’ promise seemingly stalled
By far the most successful country in the Caribbean in terms of making inroads into the extra-regional markets for local products, notably in the agro-processing sector, Jamaica’s small- and medium-sized enterprises are once again being advised to raise their game even higher in terms taking advantage of the market opportunities ‘on offer’ in the more potentially lucrative international markets.
