Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John says this coun­try’s strate­gic in­vest­ment mis­sion to the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) “went very well.”

John gave a brief re­sponse to ques­tions sent to her via What­sApp, stat­ing that while the vis­it has gone well thus far, she would pre­fer to give greater de­tails up­on her re­turn to T&T and af­ter brief­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la-Per­sad Bisses­sar and her Cab­i­net on the trip.

The in­vest­ment mis­sion is set to con­tin­ue as the T&T team was yes­ter­day head­ing to Bahrain to have dis­cus­sions in that coun­try as well.

The mis­sion is spear­head­ed by Min­is­ter John, Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries, Sad­dam Ho­sein, as well as Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers.

Ear­li­er this week the min­is­ters met with UAE Min­is­ter of State for For­eign Trade.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Gov­ern­ment, that meet­ing cen­tred on ex­plor­ing mu­tu­al trade and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties as part of the min­is­te­r­i­al del­e­ga­tion’s ef­forts to strength­en glob­al part­ner­ships and boost non-oil for­eign trade, di­rect­ly sup­port­ing the goals of the Gov­ern­ment’s Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print by se­cur­ing for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment and di­ver­si­fy­ing the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

T&T Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print is a com­pre­hen­sive plan aimed at trans­form­ing the coun­try in­to a glob­al lo­gis­ti­cal hub. It in­cludes 129 ma­jor projects that are trans­for­ma­tive, fo­cussing on eco­nom­ic ex­pan­sion, pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships and at­tract­ing for­eign in­vest­ment.

When the blue­print was un­veiled at the Hy­att Re­gency on No­vem­ber 7, John sig­nalled that she was head­ing to the Mid­dle East to es­tab­lish whether in­vestors there would be in­ter­est­ed in fund­ing var­i­ous projects.

The blue­print aims to cre­ate over 50,000 jobs and re­vamp key ar­eas such as the Port of Spain and San Fer­nan­do wa­ter­fronts, In­vaders Bay and Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. The gov­ern­ment is seek­ing pri­vate in­vest­ment to fund these projects, pro­mot­ing T&T as a prime des­ti­na­tion for busi­ness and de­vel­op­ment. The plan is ex­pect­ed to start con­struc­tion by mid-2026, with the goal of mak­ing this coun­try un­recog­nis­able in ten years.

In Sep­tem­ber 2024, T&T had signed air ser­vices agree­ment with the UAE fol­low­ing talks at the 79th Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) in New York.