Man­ag­ing T&T's nat­ur­al re­sources, cre­at­ing up­stream and down­stream val­ue from the en­er­gy sec­tor and re­new­able en­er­gy are but three of the sub­jects which will be ex­plored at next week's Caribbean In­vest­ment Fo­rum (CIF). The CIF, to be held on June 13 and 14, is the first half of T&T Trade and In­vest­ment Week, which in­cludes the an­nu­al Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC), which its or­gan­is­ers have de­scribed as the largest busi­ness-to-busi­ness trade and in­vest­ment event in the south­ern Caribbean.

The fo­rum will show­case in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties in T&T and across the re­gion and the po­ten­tial of the Caribbean to act as a bridge be­tween Com­mon­wealth mar­kets and the Amer­i­c­as. The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of CIF, which will start at 9.30 am, will fea­ture Stephen Cadiz, Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter; Sir Al­lan Fields, chair­man, Com­mon­wealth Busi­ness Coun­cil, and chair­man, Ca­ble and Wire­less, Con­stru­to­ra OAS Ltd; Lar­ry Howai, chair­man of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), and Her­nan Rin­con, pres­i­dent, Mi­crosoft Latin Amer­i­ca. The list of speak­ers is a high-rank­ing one. Jos&ea­cute; Miguel In­sulza, Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS). Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is to de­liv­er the keynote ad­dress.

Man­ag­ing nat­ur­al re­sources

The 11.30 am to 12.45 pm ses­sion ti­tled, Man­ag­ing Nat­ur­al Re­sources: Part­ner­ships for Growth will in­clude Derek Hud­son, pres­i­dent and as­set gen­er­al man­ag­er, BG T&T; David Surat­gar, chair­man of the ad­vi­so­ry board of Tay­lor-De­Jongh Inc, a Wash­ing­ton, DC-based spe­cial­ist in­vest­ment bank­ing firm; and NGC of­fi­cials. Fol­low­ing this ses­sion, At­lantic, for­mer­ly At­lantic LNG, will host a net­work­ing lunch.

Cre­at­ing val­ue from oil, gas

From 2 pm to 3.15 pm, Thack­wray Dri­ver, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the En­er­gy Cham­ber, will chair a ses­sion on cre­at­ing up­stream and down­stream val­ue from T&T's oil and gas. Par­tic­i­pants will in­clude Os­car Pri­eto, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, At­lantic; Ver­non Pal­too, team leader, of­fice of the pres­i­dent, Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion (NEC); Im­ti­az Ali, cor­po­rate man­ag­er, strat­e­gy and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at State-owned Petrotrin; and, Vin­cent Pereira, pres­i­dent, BHP Bil­li­ton.

Man­u­fac­tur­ers' chal­lenges

Over­com­ing chal­lenges for man­u­fac­tur­ers in the Caribbean is the ses­sion that Je­w­an Ram­char­i­tar, chair­man of e-TecK, which has been tasked to di­ver­si­fy T&T's non-en­er­gy sec­tor, will chair from 3.30 pm. The pan­el will com­prise Do­minic Hadeed, pres­i­dent of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, San­cia Ben­nett-Tem­pler, pres­i­dent, Ja­maica Pro­mo­tions Cor­po­ra­tion (Jam­pro), which has the man­date to pro­mote and fa­cil­i­tate trade, in­vest­ments and pro­mo­tions and to en­cour­age and sup­port the ex­port of Ja­maican prod­ucts; Ian Rolle, pres­i­dent, Grand Ba­hamas Port Au­thor­i­ty; Ger­ry Brooks, chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer, ANSA McAL Group, and Kr­ish­na Ram­lo­gan, Group chief op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer, Elec­tri­cal In­dus­tries Ltd.

Re­new­able en­er­gy

Two of the lat­est buzz phras­es in busi­ness cir­cles nowa­days are re­new­able en­er­gy and green tech­nol­o­gy. Arthur Snell, British High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T, will chair a dis­cus­sion on this sub­ject, which will fea­ture Do­minic Emery, chief of staff at BP Al­ter­na­tive En­er­gy; Jo­han Sydow, di­rec­tor, SiTek Ltd, and ge­ot­her­mal re­source man­ag­er at West In­dies Pow­er; Jose Ro­driguez, de­vel­op­ment di­rec­tor, Gen­er­ado­ra Haina; and Robert Tang Yuk, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, TYE Man­u­fac­tur­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd.

Cap­i­tal­is­ing on cul­ture

Cul­ture is an eclec­tic mix of events. In the Caribbean, it's Car­ni­val, mu­sic, fash­ion and film. How does the re­gion cap­i­talise on these dif­fer­ent gen­res? A key fig­ure on the sub­ject, Dr Kei­th Nurse, se­nior lec­tur­er at the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) and di­rec­tor of the Sir Shri­dath Ram­phal Cen­tre for In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Law, Pol­i­cy and Ser­vices, UWI, Bar­ba­dos.

Nurse, who has con­duct­ed a ground-break­ing study on the eco­nom­ic im­pact of Car­ni­val on T&T and has been cham­pi­oning the idea of in­vest­ing in Caribbean cre­ative in­dus­tries, will chair this ses­sion. Pre­sen­ters will in­clude Kai Schoen­hals, com­mer­cial di­rec­tor, Vici­ni Group; Trinidad-born film­mak­er, Frances Anne Solomon, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Le­da Serene Films; cou­turi­er, Clau­dia Pe­gus De­signs Ltd; and, Mahin­dra Satram-Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent, Na­tion­al Car­ni­val De­vel­op­ment Fund.

On Tues­day, heads of trade will meet to talk about en­hanc­ing trade and in­vest­ment be­tween the Com­mon­wealth, Car­i­fo­rum and the Amer­i­c­as. T&T's Trade Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz will chair this team, which will in­clude Karl Samu­da, Min­istry of In­dus­try, In­vest­ment and Com­merce, Ja­maica; Manuel Gar­cia Areva­lo, Min­is­ter of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic; Pamela Coke-Hamil­ton, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Caribbean Ex­port De­vel­op­ment Agency.

A key ses­sion on Tues­day will be Suresh Sookoo, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Caribbean bank­ing, RBC, chair­ing a dis­cus­sion on new in­no­va­tions for ac­cess­ing fi­nance. Lead­ing the de­bate will be Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Ewart Williams, who will be joined by Wen­dell Mot­t­ley, se­nior ad­vis­er, Cred­it Su­isse; Prof Avinash Per­saud, chair­man, In­tel­li­gence Cap­i­tal Ltd in Bar­ba­dos; and, Dou­glas Hew­son, man­ag­ing part­ner of the Cana­di­an firm, Port­land Pri­vate Eq­ui­ty.