Upcoming agri- investment forum more than just another seminar
- aimed at targeting real investment - President Jagdeo
Georgetown, GINA, April 18, 2008
President Bharrat Jagdeo today joined Caricom Secretary General Edwin Carrington today in unveiling a banner to herald in the Regional Agri-Business Investment Forum which will be held in Guyana during the period June 6 to 7.
The forum which is intended to create better business opportunities for the Caribbean through the convergence of potential investors and financial institutions was launched today at the Caricom Secretariat, Turkeyen.
Among those at the launching ceremony were Chairman of the Task Force on Regional Agriculture Investment Forum James Moss-Solomon, Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) Geoff DaSilva and representatives of the Diplomatic Corps.
The forum which will be held under the theme “Investing in our future: Agri Business is good business,” will provide investors and other stakeholders an opportunity to engage in dialogue to open investment opportunity to boost agricultural production in the regions.
The new move according to President Jagdeo is to create awareness among political leaders and private sector institutions and is not summoned because of the recent surge in food prices.
“The objectives here are two-fold, one is regional food security to replace as far as possible food imports and this represents a huge opportunity to our people, and secondly to transform agriculture into a competitive export industry,” the President said.
For President Jagdeo, boosting agricultural production calls for a proper development strategy for the Caribbean with support from a combination of the sectors.
“Work started some time ago to put a renewed focus on agriculture especially as part of the revised treaty of Chaguaramas and more particularly as one of the areas that we have to pay attention to if we are going to make the CSME work,” President Jagdeo said.
The Head of State referred to the Caribbean food plan of the 1970s and the regional transformation programme for agriculture in the 1990s as some of the past efforts to support the agriculture drive but considers this forum the most important part of all efforts in the region.
“What we will be trying to do in a few months time when the forum is held is to bring the investors together with the bankers and the governments to work out specific deals. … I have asked that each country in the region come to that meeting to say what are the possibilities for agriculture in their respective countries and how can the governments help,” President Jagdeo said.
The Caricom Secretary General acknowledged this new effort which stems from the Jagdeo initiative on agriculture to bring this forum to reality
Speaking on the severity of the rising food prices phenomenon Dr. Carrington said it has resulted in the region’s import bill climbing to over US$3B and prominent food producing countries restricting exports. He also referred to the recent sacking of the Haitian Prime Minister as one of the consequent threats which the phenomenon has on Governments.
“We have a virtual crisis situation on our hands and I don’t think any of us will want to wait until it has overtaken us until before we begin to attempt to deal with it. All hands must now come on deck, government business media and general civil society,” Dr Carrington said.
He added that responding to the crisis also calls for the changes in consumption habits.
The phenomenon should be seen as no surprise according to Moss-Solomon since it is well publicised and has been addressed by President Jagdeo for over two years.
“What are our actions here is that we need to be proactive in implementing a plan that will ensure our own survival,” Moss-Solomon said.
Guyana has made a firm commitment to this effort with the recent ‘Grow more’ campaign which seeks to encourage farmers to expand their production so that export markets can be improved.
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