Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, has called on regional leaders to redouble efforts to eliminate longstanding impediments to the free movement of goods and people across the Caribbean, as the region grapples with building sustainable and resilient economies.
Dr. Singh made the call while leading an open floor discussion on ‘Building Food Resilience’ at the One Caribbean Ministerial Dialogue forum convened by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, held under the theme “Building Resilience through Regional Collaboration.”
The Minister noted that while CARICOM Heads had adopted the objective of reducing the region’s food import bill by 25% by 2025 — a target now extended to 2030 — and had set a mandate to reduce food imports by an estimated 4.6 million tonnes by that year, internal impediments including sanitary and phytosanitary barriers to intra-regional trade continue to hamper progress.
Dr. Singh highlighted investments being made across the region in pursuit of food security, noting efforts in the Bahamas in climate-smart agriculture and solar-powered hydroponic farms, financial support for small farmers in Belize targeting sugar, rice, maize and soyabean, and Jamaica’s investments in cold storage, supply chain infrastructure and water management.
On Guyana’s part, he pointed to significant investments in climate-resilient agriculture, drainage and irrigation infrastructure, farm-to-market roads, agro-processing capabilities and transport infrastructure to open up more productive land.
“In Guyana’s case this includes transport infrastructure to open up more productive land, building out farm-to-market roads to be able to bring our production more efficiently to markets, building out agro-processing capabilities so that we are no longer an exporter of primary agricultural produce but that we produce more value-added output,” he said.
Dr. Singh stressed that food security is not only a humanitarian necessity but a fundamental economic pillar for the Caribbean, and expressed appreciation for the IDB’s support through the One Caribbean initiative, describing the Bank’s contribution as vital for both public infrastructure and private sector growth in achieving long-term economic resilience.
