Statement of His Excellency Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, Press Conference

Members of the press good morning. Those who are tuning in via social media, good morning.  This morning, I wish to update the population and the media on various outcomes in terms of my international engagements. I wish to give a summary of the discussions, the results of those discussions, and what we can expect in relation to various meetings I’ve had over the last few months. 

This includes my participation at the Sixth Summit of the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States; my visit to the United Nations and several bilateral meetings; my involvement in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Barbados and my attendance at the World Expo 2020 in Dubai.

I will also highlight key focus areas at the upcoming 26 Conference of Parties on climate change scheduled for November 1st to the 12th Cop26 in Glasgow, Scotland. 

As you’re aware, yesterday we launched the consultation for LCDS. And that is an important part of what we’ll be promoting in Glasgow itself. 

In September, I attended the Sixth Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Mexico City where I emphasised our concerns in the following three main areas:

Firstly, food security in the region and our need to develop and bolster our food production in a sustainable and profitable manner. As you are aware food security is an emerging threat, the sustainability of food supply is an issue in our region. And when I say our region I mean the Caribbean and Latin American states.

To compound this, we have seen sharp increases globally. And these have to do, not only with production issues but supply chain issues, logistic issues, transportation issues. If these challenges persist under the current environment, we are going to be severely challenged in the region in terms of food supply and pricing. 

As a result of this, there is now renewed interest in food production, agricultural production, food sustainability, and security. And we have been taking a proactive approach in positioning Guyana, as a major player in the food supply chain firstly within the CARICOM region and then wider afield. I will expand on a few specific initiatives that we are pursuing bilaterally in a few moments. 

We also discussed issues of the unfair and inequitable distribution and access to Covid-19 vaccines and then enjoined the call for CELAC membership being able to accelerate research development, production and global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines and treatments based on the principle of international solidarity. 

So, at that meeting, we agreed that the Region itself will build capacity in terms of research and development, vaccine production and a logistics system and infrastructure that will allow us to take care of the region’s needs. We have seen the tremendous difficulties the Region faced in the early stages and in response to the vaccination aspect of the pandemic. Access to vaccines was a very difficult situation for most of the countries in the Region. So, at that meeting, concrete steps were discussed in building the capacity within the Region itself. 

We also identified priority issues for the Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) on the heels of COP26. We call on leaders to share particular focus on climate change and disaster risk management, access to concessional financing high levels of indebtedness, natural disaster funds and graduated transition. Guyana supports the establishment of a voluntary fund to facilitate Regional Disaster Response, you will see one of the key themes and all of my engagements internationally has been around food security, and sustainability, climate change, climate action, and of course, our deep interest and commitment in addressing the fundamental problems and issues of climate change, including the transitional resources that are key and critical in adaptation and mitigation. 

In Mexico, I also had the opportunity to meet with a number of potential investors who had a wide range of interests from cement production to housing development, tourism and mining. Very early in the New Year we expect a contingent from Mexico to be here to discuss their interest in partnering with the local private sector and advancing work on some of these opportunities. 

One of the key things I’ve emphasised in all my meetings with various investors, and we have met from the most sophisticated financial institutions to the most sophisticated technological investors, is that there must be collaboration and cooperation involvement of the local private sector. 

At the United Nations General Assembly as you are aware I’ve highlighted various issues, including issues surrounding the Covid-19, pandemic, the disparity in vaccination distribution and the preferential treatment of vaccines.

I address the issue of climate change, the issue of the Venezuela controversy. And of course, we reiterated our position on the need for a peaceful two-state solution between Israel and Palestine and we call for the normalisation of relationships between the U.S. and Cuba. 

In addition, I participated in various events held during the General Assembly week, including a ceremony commemorating, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks where I had the opportunity of reiterating Guyana’s firm commitment in fighting international and transnational crimes, and our firm support to the International Community in advancing work to end terrorism and to fight every aspect of international crime and terrorism. 

The SDG moment was an important activity where I highlighted Guyana’s commitment to inclusive development. I had the opportunity to elaborate on our various development initiative and reported on our progress is in achieving the SDGs. As you know, the Sustainable Development Goals that are set for 2030 are severely threatened not only for Guyana but for countries in the region and globally. That is as a result of various factors: the increase of natural disasters, the consequential effect of climate change, additionally the pandemic has really set back progress towards the achievement of the SDGs. And this is a major issue leaders around the world, including Guyana, are challenged with. How do we still achieve the SDGs under these very trying circumstances? 

So, it requires realignment of resources. It requires the reprioritising of budgetary, allocation. It requires also the support of the International Community on debt servicing, on reprogramming of resources and having more resources available. Because as you’re aware, the developing world has had to invest a lot in our fight against this pandemic. 

Now, as you know, there was a call recently and CARICOM has been a major part of this call for a multi-dimensional vulnerability index, that index would help to rate countries in terms of your vulnerability to natural disasters and effects of climate change and these vulnerabilities and effects would definitely have a link to the type of resources and the type of action that are taken and support that is given to those countries. 

At the Alliance of Small Island States Leaders’ Summit, I called for a renewed global effort in a fight against climate change to meet the goal of the Paris Agreement. Now, many may say that it’s a broken record calling for the developed world to meet their commitment in terms of the 100 billion dollars pledged. And that message has been overworked and we are getting nowhere with that message, well we can compare it to the democracy message. Democracy is important, we have to keep talking about democracy, where democracy doesn’t exist, but it’s not overwork, it is important. We can’t talk about new commitments on climate issues and climate change when we are not honouring the existing commitment of a hundred billion dollars. So, those issues were discussed. 

We also examined issues of exposure to external economic shocks. That is the member states of the Alliance of Small Island States. We have great exposure to economic shocks our ecological fragility and our susceptibility to natural hazards. Just look at Covid-19 alone the increases in transportation costs, logistics and delays are affecting smaller developing states more intensely than larger states.  So, these were issues that were discussed.

At the bilateral level, we held discussions with the UN Secretary-General reiterating our commitment to the ICJ process on the Venezuelan controversy and requested his office to encourage Venezuela to participate fully in the case before the court. I also updated the Secretary-General on our development, agenda oil and gas strategy, and our commitment to the fight against climate change. 

In my bilateral, meeting with the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation we discussed the completion of an updated country strategy that is reflective of the new Government’s agenda in the context of the Islamic Development Bank support in realising projects and programmes of the country. I also outlined Guyana’s interest in expanding its livestock and poultry production in keeping with the Halal industry specifications and offered to host and OIC headquarters in the region. Now, the Halal industry certification is important for us as we work on expanding our livestock industry and our poultry industry. This is a niche market and it’s a market that has tremendous potential for our local producers. As you’re aware we are working aggressively on a programme to reduce the input costs to reduce the cost of production, increase our efficiency, and improve and increase our production to become large scale producers and suppliers of livestock, and poultry products and supplies. 

In the bilateral with the president of Ghana, we discuss issues that included collaboration in the oil and gas sector and climate change.  As a follow-up to this bilateral, Vice President Jagdeo led a team to Ghana the outcome of which included, technical teams, that will be here shortly to review work on the gas to shore energy project. And to give us their opinion and technical views. They will work with us on the finalisation of our local content Legislation and they will assist in the amendment of The Sovereign Wealth Fund legislation. The first phases of this technical team, which are the CEOs the highly competent persons in these specific areas, will be here very early in the new month to start work. 

All of these areas the local content legislation, the amendment to The Sovereign Wealth Fund legislation are to be tabled in the National Assembly and debated before the end of this year. It is also expected that the Vice President of Ghana will be visiting Guyana later this year. And it’s anticipated that the president of Ghana will participate in the oil and gas conference set for February 2022. In addition, a team of investors will be visiting Guyana to establish partnerships with local counterparts in various investment opportunities. So, in addition to the technical teams and the cooperation at the bilateral level, we have also established an opportunity for cooperation and collaboration and partnership with the private sector from Ghana and that of Guyana and a team from Ghana will be here in Guyana to look at this specifically. They have various areas of interest, agriculture, mining, tourism and food production. They have a wide array of interests. So, we are hoping that the local private sector can actively participate and create the environment for this partnership to prosper. 

I also met with the President of the IDB, we discuss the finalisation of Guyana’s programme with a bank. The President of the bank highlighted the fact that the priorities of the Government of Guyana are aligned with that of the bank and is keen on being a primary partner with Guyana. I must say that the International Development Bank re-emphasise its commitment to Guyana and to be one of our primary partners. So, we are hoping to, we had this high-level engagement, that the president of the bank himself would be coming to Guyana to have a first-hand analysis and understanding of the development challenges, the aspirations and the type of projects that are critical for the social-economic transformation of our country. 

In my bilateral meeting with the Secretary-General of the Organisation of American States, he reiterated organisation’s commitment and support in electoral reform and the strengthening of democracy in Guyana. This was a fundamental theme of discussion with the Secretary-General of the OAS, and he reiterated their support and willingness to help Guyana in ensuring that we strengthen our democracy and that the electoral reform whatever help is needed on the side of electoral reform, they are willing to assist. 

Our bilateral meeting with the president of Kosovo. We agreed to support Kosovo’s bid to be members of several International Organisation. Kosovo also expressed his desire to conclude an agreement with Guyana that will facilitate trade between the two countries. 

The President of Austria and I also met and we discussed several areas of interest, including the health sector climate change oil and gas and investments. 

In my bilateral with the President of Maldives, we discussed collaboration in areas relating to climate change and reformed our joint commitment and credentials on the environment. As you’re aware, Maldives and Guyana always supported each other. And were strong promoters on issues of climate change and operated more or less like a spin twin. We were able to rekindle that relationship and to put together the technical team to collaborate and work together in areas of climate change in addressing areas of climate change. 

In my bilateral with His Highness Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, we discussed partnership and collaboration in oil and gas, issues relating to COP26 and the development of a nuanced approach to a decarbonised world. We also discussed finding the right energy mix. We had an elaborate discussion on energy security and having the right energy mix that is sustainable for Guyana, Guyana’s transformative agenda and investment opportunities. As you know, these are new areas somewhat to say that we are pushing Guyana and the investment opportunities in Guyana. So, we had strong discussions on that. And also, His Highness committed to a team from Saudi Arabia visiting to discuss these areas, but importantly, to work with our technical people in relation to the Sovereign Wealth Fund. In addition to this strong socio-economic developmental issue, we discussed the issues of visas for a Guyanese hajj participant and the improved presence of Saudi Arabia in the CARICOM region.

In my bilateral with the prime minister of Kuwait, we discussed again, cooperation in the areas of climate change, oil and gas and investment. He reaffirmed that the Kuwaiti Investment Fund stands ready to discuss with us our national development needs and priorities and to see how the Kuwaiti Development Fund can work with Guyana in supporting those development needs. The Prime Minister of Kuwait expressed the desire to lead a team including his private sector to Guyana. And again, next year we will be planning to facilitate this visit by the Prime Minister of Kuwait and his team.

 In my bilateral, with the President of Colombia. We discuss our mutual concerns on climate change and the environment. The strengthening of strategic cooperation in the area of defence and security. And this was a key area that we discuss, the issue of transnational crime and we discuss a strong approach and a new differentiated approach in strategic cooperation in the areas of defence and security.  At that meeting, President Marquez also expressed a desire to have an official visit to Guyana in the New Year.

In addition to these bilateral meetings, I had the opportunity to participate in the Goldman Sachs Leaders Forum on economic recovery and restructuring in emerging economies and the integral role of energy and infrastructure development. I had the opportunity to meet with a number of financial institutions, the diaspora, religious leaders and potential investors.

I now wish to turn my attention to UNCTAD. I attended the 15th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Meeting in Barbados and had the opportunity to speak in the leader’s debate on issues pertaining to the world’s current development part as well as a need to give more impetus to multilateralism.

In Barbados, I had the opportunity to hold bilateral talks with Prime Minister Mottley and the President Kenyatta of Kenya we discussed ways in which Guyana and Kenya could strengthen the bilateral relationship and agreed that our technical teams would meet to elaborate on an agenda that will give practical formation to our desire. In my discussion with Prime Minister Mottley, we hammered out a concrete time-bound framework for enhanced collaboration and trade between Guyana and Barbados in the areas of food production and export. Some of the areas we discussed and have agreement on:

(1) Increased production, removal of barriers to trade and the possibility of a Guyana-Barbados food terminal;

(2)   Transport logistics and efficiency;

(3)   Agro-processing facilities;

(4)   A Guyana-Barbados food sustainability plan;

(5)   find the sanitary gaps and commitment to bridging those gaps;

(6)      Exchange of technicians between the Ministries of Agriculture to facilitate smooth and efficient transaction flow

So, what we have agreed on is that we will have a Guyanese in the Ministry of Agriculture in Barbados and a Bajan in the Ministry of Agriculture in Guyana. So that Guyanese can deal directly with their counterpart in Barbados and that Barbados can deal directly with their counterpart here. Thus, removing the hassle, the barriers, the bureaucracy—that is what we are trying to remove here. We also discussed the opportunities for quarry, feedstock, livestock, and limestone.

Direct support for the tourism sector with an exchange air time of 45 minutes per week for the reciprocal promotion of both countries. So, we agreed, both Prime Minister Mottley and I, that we will exchange 45 minutes of air time for the promotion of Barbados in Guyana and for the promotion of Guyana in Barbados. In addition to this, we agreed on working out the mechanism for the twinning of our tourism product, for the joint marketing of our tourism product and to promote Guyana and Barbados as a common destination.  So we spoke about the development of a joint marketing strategy in traditional and non-traditional markets and importantly, knowing the needs that we will have for personnel in the hospitality sector. We agreed with Barbados that they will support us in the training of 6,000 Guyanese for the hospitality sector, you know Barbados has an established world-class hospitality programme, and they’re going to support us in the training of 6,000 Guyanese who will function in the hospitality sector.

We discussed is the sharing of port space to facilitate trade and reduce costs for the movement of goods between the two countries. So, what we discuss is to identify specific port space for Barbados in Guyana and for Guyana in Barbados to reduce the costs of transportation, to improve efficiency, to enhance trade and to deliver products at a far cheaper cost to the markets.

Barbados is committed to exploring our wood forestry products to enhance value and incorporate them into the Barbados market. Both countries, discuss the possibility of adding value to Guyana’s gold by creating a Gold Market Hub concept in Barbados. Now, many of you would travel internationally and you will hear of gold markets if you go in some Caribbean countries, you would know that some cruise liners go to some islands specifically because of the creation of a Gold Market Hub. So, that is what we are trying to create. Barbados is a major cruise destination and we are working on the possibility of adding value to Guyana gold and creating a gold market hub concept in Barbados. Prime Minister Mottley and I committed to a timeframe through which results of this enhanced partnership will be felt by the population of both countries. Subsequently, a high-level delegation from Barbados recently visited Guyana to commence technical work on the opportunities discussed between Prime Minister Mottley and myself.

My visit to Dubai was focused on discussing key areas of interest for Guyana. But before I go into those areas, I want to thank the members of the cultural team, those Guyanese we have working in the Guyana Pavilion for the excellent work that they have been doing and for the type of commitment they have shown in promoting Guyana. So, we discussed various areas, including food security project financing and what was overwhelming is the unprecedented level of interest in Guyana non-oil economy.

One thing is for certain, oil and gas has placed us in the international eye, or if you would want to say in the centre of the eye. It has given us an opportunity also to demonstrate our potential that is equally or more important than oil and gas in its sustainability framework. And that is why we were super excited at the tremendous interest shown in Guyana non-oil economy, including such sectors as the extractive sector gold and bauxite, agriculture, tourism, and other services.  We were taken aback at a number of groups that actually travelled to meet the Guyanese delegation from different countries in that region. Expressing various desires and interests in investment in Guyana. We spoke at the UAE in strengthening our relations between our private sectors and generally moving beyond the traditional government to government bilateral relations. Opportunities abound for business-to-business partnerships and companies in Guyana are interested and well-positioned to enter into strategic partnerships with their Global counterparts.

In Dubai, meetings were held with UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs, His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation and Managing Director for the Dubai World Expo, Her Excellency Reem Ebrahim Al Hashimy.  In these engagements, our two countries committed to strengthening bilateral relations and to build on the foundation already laid to promote increased activities between our two countries, in this regard an MOU was signed at the final meeting with Sheikh Abdullah committing our two countries to advanced technical cooperation and technical assistance in several areas.

While in Dubai we had an extensive discussion with Khalifa Port or the Abu Dhabi Ports. As you’re aware they had two technical teams in Guyana working and looking at the possibility of the establishment of a deep-water harbour link to Brazil. And at that meeting, we had in-depth discussions on this possibility. The interest is great in this project and in two to three weeks, they will have a second team coming with a follow-up on the evaluation. And they are looking at a modern state-of-the-art Port facility operated with cutting-edge technology, focusing on efficiency, safety and security.

Importantly, we had a meeting with Mubadala which is the UAE Sovereign investment vehicle, which has over $240B in assets, across six continents, which invest in world-class infrastructure globally. They also support industrial and commercial clusters and partner with global entities to support national development. It was agreed that Guyana will share project proposals with Mubadala for funding considerations, as we speak to Ministry of Finance is working on a portfolio of projects to be discussed with Mubadala. A meeting with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce was held also. Opportunities for closer relations between the private sector of Guyana and that of Dubai were discussed. The Dubai Chamber offer to facilitate the establishment of a Guyana Trade Office in Dubai to promote and expedite investment and trade partnership on an ongoing basis.

In Dubai also, we held several meetings with major groups and cooperation, including Elite Agro, a major global investor, producer and distributor of agricultural and food products including fresh vegetables and fruits, coffee and tea; the Al Habtoor Group which has major Investments and tourism and hospitality, and the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC). All three entities are planning to visit Guyana shortly and their interest are in collaborating with a local private sector in developing local capacity, increasing production and expanding trade opportunities. Their interests are in varied areas, including coffee production, tea production, agro-processing speciality markets for fruits and vegetables, gold refinery, large-scale mining opportunities and technology transfer.

I now wish to turn my attention to COP26. As you’re aware I will be joining global leaders at COP26.

Guyana will be participating fully, both at the policy and political level and at the technical level. The focus for COP26 will be on four themes, including enhancing our country’s commitments on forest and land use; including reducing deforestation and accelerating forest restoration, scaling finance and investment; including private sector finance, sharing action towards sustainable production, and consumption. And four, support for local people and stakeholders. We intend to signal our commitment as every other nation that we all have a responsibility to climate change, but it must be differentiated we will outline a realistic and achievable emission reduction ambition for Guyana. And it is very important that we outline a realistic and achievable ambition target. We cannot go and criticise countries that are not sticking to the commitment and then we make targets that cannot be achieved.

We have to communicate targets that are achievable and realistic, and that is what we’ll be doing. And these targets and ambitions will be in keeping with our energy strategy and programming. We must appreciate that Guyana is already a net carbon sink we will address issues of accessibility to financing for mitigation and adaptation for Small Island Developing States, well pursue initiatives to strengthen and expand the market for the sale of carbon credits, and we intend to renew our a call for the implementation of the commitment made to the fulfilment of the 100 billion dollars pledged.

Guyana will endorse Glasgow on forest and land use, which includes strengthening our efforts for forest conservation ecosystem and accelerated restoration, promoting development policies and strategies that foster sustainable development, reduce vulnerability, build resilience, and enhance resilient rural livelihoods. Greater investments in food, security, appropriate, technology and infrastructure for Hinterland communities and redesign agricultural policies and programmes to incentivise investment and expansion.

Our participation in COP26 will re-establish Guyana as a leading example, for net carbon sink. In addition to the events surrounding COP26. I’ll be having a number of bilateral engagements where I intend to promote Guyana among investors and major financial institutions.

Members of the press, ladies and gentlemen, this is a brief overview of my international engagement, some of the outcomes and some of the issues that we have discussed.

Thank you very much.