-bank to assess high-priority projects for 2017

PRESIDENT David Granger has met at the Ministry of the Presidency with officials from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) who are currently in Guyana on their first official visit since the country became a full member of the Bank in April.The meeting included Finance Minister Winston Jordan and the IDB team comprising the Bank’s Director of Country Programmes Department and Special Advisor to the Vice- President, Mohammad Alsaati, Senior Country Programme Manager for Guyana, Saifullah Abid, and Manager for the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America (MENA and LatAm), Anisse Terai.

President Granger has said that Guyana’s decision to become a full member of the IDB is long overdue. He noted that his administration has clear visions on how it wants to proceed, and the kind of development projects it would like to embark on through its partnership with the IDB.

The President explained that Guyana is unique, given its pristine forests and tremendous untapped and undiscovered potential, and is a new frontier for development.

“We see ourselves as a bridge between the insular Caribbean and the continent…. We are strategically placed, but there is always a question about infrastructure. We have not been able to develop highways to much of our hinterland communities, and it is in the hinterland that we have our richest resources,” the Head of State said.

President Granger spoke of major projects in which the IDB could be involved, including bridging the Essequibo River and establishing the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Mr. Alsaati, for his part, said that the bank intends to work with the Ministry of Finance and other stakeholders in the public and private sectors to develop a medium-term (three-to-five-year) strategy to identify areas in which it can add value and make a positive impact.

He said the bank is specifically looking at areas such as capacity-building, transportation, energy, information technology, health care, agriculture and infrastructure.

He disclosed that, in the coming weeks, technical teams would be coming to Guyana to look at high-priority emergency projects which can commence in 2017.

The IDB was established in December 1973, and officially opened its doors for business on October 20, 1975. It is headquartered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but also operates through regional offices in Kazakhstan, Senegal, Malaysia and the Kingdom of Morocco.

Guyana is the 57th country to become a member of the bank; which has one member country in Latin America, 27 in Africa, two in Europe, and 26 in Asia. Suriname is the only other CARICOM state that is also a member of the bank.