Regional: Caribbean leaders to hold summit with Saudi Arabia next month

Caribbean Community leaders will meet with Saudi Arabian leaders next month for the first ever summit, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley announced on Thursday.

Rowley, speaking at a news conference here said that the summit will be held on November 16

“As you may know Saudi Arabia is one of the countries in the world, which has a huge investment fund with which they do major investments around the world and we in CARICOM, one of the things we are always short off is an inflow of foreign direct investment.

“So Saudi Arabia’s interest in the CARICOM in recent times has been increasing and we have been encouraging it. They have already made significant investment across CARICOM. Trinidad and Tobago, we have been in touch and we have been part of the discussions and they have arranged with CARICOM a summit that is to take place …in Riyadh on the 16th  November,” Rowley told reporters.

He said, the proposed summit, coming soon after the very successful Canada-CARICOM summit, will not affect the bilateral talks Port of Spain intends to continue with Riyad.

Rowley said he also intends to attend the United nations Climate Change Conference (COP 28 in Dubai from November 30 to Decemer 12, and that the bilateral talks with Saudi Arabia would take place.

“I am going to do both. I will attend to the summit because I don’t want to be the reason why it would have to be re-scheduled or possibly postponed because my other CARICOM colleagues are eager have it and so we are going to have it on the 16th (November),” Rowley said.

“Trinidad and Tobago will be present and I will be leading a delegation to this summit  in Saudi Arabia, but because of how it has come quickly, our bilateral relationships and discussions, which were quite advanced with Saudi Arabia would continue after the summit,” said Rowley, adding that he would remain in Saudi Arabia for the bilaterals.

“We would be meeting with some significant potential interest,” Rowley said, adding that he would be joined at the bi-laterals by the Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Amery Browne as well as the Minister of Energy and Energy Related Industries, Stuart Young and another government official.

He said discussions are likely to be on the issue of transportation, noting that the relevant ministry here is “quite advanced with some arrangements with respect to international air travel.

“As you know some of the biggest business in air travel today…airlines coming out of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia (and) so we are hoping to find some common ground in there with some CARICOM western interest,” Rowley said.

He said he intends to attend the COP 28 meeting where discussions will be on climate change issues as well as on the financial commitments made by the international community to help Small islands Developing States (SIDS) including those in the Caribbean deal with the impact of climate change.

“Trinidad and Tobago has a vested interest in those negotiations and I will lead our delegation there,” he said, adding he would be there for the high level discussions likely to take place over a three day period.

Rowley said he then travels to London, accompanied by Young for meetings with energy stakeholders regarding the Atlantic LNG project here in Trinidad and Tobago.

“ The restructuring of Atlantic LNG is one of the most significant things that this government would have done. It was not easy, but I think we were able to convince the principals that Trinidad and Tobago’s interest has to come first…certainly not last.

“We have spent the last two and a half years on this exercise and we have now concluded it and the signing of that is to take place with Shell, BP in London and we do have new business to discuss with two other companies after”.

He said the meetings in London will be held December 4-6.

Rowley defended his decision to re-negotiate the terms of conditions regarding the Atlantic LNG project , which he described as “far reaching”  and that without the restructuring Trinidad and Tobago’s “earning capacity would have been  significantly hampered…going forward”.

He said prior to the new agreement, Trinidad and Tobago shareholding in train one was 10 per cent, 11 per cent in train four and nothing in trains two and three.

“Train one being the oldest, when the gas availability became a problem…the other owners of train one decided that train one had to be withdrawn, there was not enough gas to run four trains.

They had all the shareholdings in trains two and three and you know what that meant for us,” he said, adding “what we did was to make sure we kept train one on the table so that we would have a seat at the table so that we could negotiate and rather negotiate for a funeral,we negotiate for a birth…

“As a result of what we did with train one  we were able to change the shareholding in the restructured LNG business in Trinidad and Tobago, where the government of Trinidad and Tobago, now will have a shareholding of 10 per cent in the entire business.”

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