FINANCE Minister Winston Jordan is due to attend several international meetings overseas. He will first attend the 57th Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the 31st Inter-American Investment Corporation (ICC) meeting to be held in Nassau, Bahamas from April 7-10, 2016.

Minister Jordan would be accompanied at the IDB meeting by Governor of the Bank of Guyana and Alternative Governor of the International Monetary Fund (IMF,) Dr. Gobin Ganga. At that meeting, Guyana will make a statement on behalf of the Caribbean constituency of the Bank.

Guyana will be pressing for visible engagement during its discussions with the IIC, the private sector arm of the IDB. The IIC provides project financing in the form of direct loans, equity investment, and lines of credit to the private sector, but that has not been active in Guyana in past years.

Minister Jordan will be accompanied to the IIC meeting by Head of the Multilateral Financial Institution Division of the Ministry of Finance, Sheranne Isaacs.

The Finance Minister and Dr. Ganga would then move on from the meetings in Bahamas to the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, which are going to be held on April 15 – 17, 2016 in Washington DC.

Key elements of the meeting would be the discussion of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) and the joint World Bank/IMF Development Committee.

During these engagements, the opportunity will be taken to hold bilateral meetings with the officials of the IMF, World Bank and IDB, as well as other delegates and private sector organisations and civil society groups.

Following the spring meetings, Minister Jordan will then attend the Fourth Annual Ministerial Forum for Finance Ministers at Harvard University, being held from April 17 – 20, 2016.

This prestigious meeting is open to only ten serving Finance Ministers in the world. They will be drawn from Africa, South East Asia and Latin America. The theme of this year’s gathering is “Demonstrated leadership and commitment to building national well-being through economic development and social advancement.”

The forum is aimed at enhancing ministerial and political leadership to achieve better value for government investment.

Meanwhile, Cabinet has approved Guyana’s attendance at a high level IDB public-private dialogue on trade facilitation, to be held from March 30 – 31, 2016 in Argentina. This dialogue is intended to facilitate open public-private engagement and to seek to improve trade facilitation throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Business, Rajdai Jaggernauth, will represent Guyana at this meeting.

Approval has also been given for Agriculture Minister Noel Holder to lead a team to attend a meeting of the Inter-American Institute on Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA.)

The meeting will be conducted at the IAC headquarters in Costa Rica from April 11 to 15, 2016, and will discuss IICA country strategy 2014 – 2018 based on agriculture priorities and needs identified by Guyana.

Minister Holder’s delegation at the meeting will include Chief Executive of the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA), Richard Cumberbatch, and General Manager of the New Guyana Marketing Authority, Ida Sealy-Adams.

Meanwhile, Guyana will also participate in the first regional seminar on illegal deforestation. The seminar will be hosted by the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) in Brasilia, Brazil, from April 13 to 14.

Guyana’s delegation to this meeting will include Chairperson of the Guyana Forestry Commission, Jocelyn Dow; Manager of GIS Remote Centre at the Guyana Forestry Commission, Towanda Smart; and Technical Officer, Ministry of Natural Resources, Gavin Agard.