Gail Alexan­der

Suri­name is look­ing to T&T for co-op­er­a­tion in the en­er­gy sec­tor and the es­tab­lish­ment of in­dus­tri­al zones, says Suri­name Land and Spa­tial De­vel­op­ment and En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Gin­mar­do Kro­mosoe­to. Kro­mosoe­to spoke about Suri­name's thrust to in­crease re­gion­al links af­ter re­cent ini­tia­tives by Suri­name Air­ways and Mets Trav­el to in­crease aware­ness of the South Amer­i­can main­land coun­try.

Pres­i­dent De­si Bouterse, cur­rent Cari­com chair­man, had told the T&T Guardian dur­ing the 2011 Cari­com sum­mit that he want­ed to deep­en ties with T&T. Bouterse, who will chair next month's 2012 Cari­com sum­mit in St Lu­cia, has not yet been able to car­ry out his plan to vis­it T&T. But his En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Kro­mosoe­to says Suri­name is open­ing doors to glob­al neigh­bours for busi­ness be­yond eco-tourism and its min­ing projects.

"We want to utilise and max­imise this po­ten­tial," Kro­mosoe­to said. "Suri­name is part of the Ama­zon For­est, with al­most 90 per cent green land area. "The po­ten­tial of Suri­name's for­est and its bio­di­ver­si­ty is what we can of­fer the world...But we're al­so com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing pro­tect­ed ar­eas. "One of these is the Cen­tral Suri­name Na­ture Re­serve, an area of 1.6 mil­lion hectares.

"There are oth­er pro­tect­ed ar­eas and mul­ti­ple use man­age­ment ar­eas at the coastal zone of Suri­name." Kro­mosoe­to said Suri­name was look­ing to T&T for best prac­tices in the en­er­gy sec­tor and the es­tab­lish­ment of in­dus­tri­al zones. "This is what we can learn from T&T," he said.

"One of our pres­i­dent's ob­jec­tives in his ca­pac­i­ty as Cari­com chair­man is to set up Cari­com com­pa­nies-mean­ing com­pa­nies set up, owned and op­er­at­ed by Cari­com na­tion­als. "We al­so want to ex­pand busi­ness with T&T. There is much T&T busi­ness in Suri­name, not on­ly in the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor, but al­so in the petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try via Staat­solie, the state oil com­pa­ny, and in the con­struc­tion sec­tor."

On how Suri­name can com­pete with its neigh­bours-par­tic­u­lar­ly Guyana, which of­fers sim­i­lar at­trac­tions-Kro­mosoe­to said: "Our rich cul­ture di­ver­si­ty com­bined with rich culi­nary di­ver­si­ty is our strongest sell­ing point. This will be high­ly ex­posed dur­ing Car­ifes­ta 2013 in Suri­name."

The Bouterse ad­min­is­tra­tion is aware its tim­ing will be chal­lenged by the eu­ro cri­sis and glob­al eco­nom­ic is­sues. Kro­mosoe­to said: "We've been min­i­mal­ly in­flu­enced by world eco­nom­ic crises. We're now ne­go­ti­at­ing with big com­pa­nies to in­vest in gold min­ing, forestry, tourism, in­fra­struc­ture and hous­ing. A road to Brazil has al­so been planned."

As for Bouterse's con­tro­ver­sial rep­u­ta­tion, a court mar­tial on mur­der charges against him was ad­journed last month. An amnesty pro­posed by his ad­min­is­tra­tion was al­so grant­ed to him in con­nec­tion with the al­leged mur­der of 15 po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents in 1982. This met with protest from some quar­ters, in­clud­ing Hol­land.

Kro­mosoe­to, cit­ing IMF re­ports on Suri­name, how­ev­er, said: "The po­lit­i­cal land­scape at this mo­ment is sta­ble. Our eco­nom­ic po­si­tion is al­so sta­ble. We're gear­ing to host the next African Caribbean-Pa­cif­ic-Eu­ro­pean Union par­lia­men­tary meet­ing by year-end. "Suri­name is rel­a­tive­ly safe...There are se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in place."

Suri­name Air­ways is al­so mark­ing its 50th an­niver­sary on Au­gust 30 this year. SLN, which con­nects to Guyana, T&T, Cu­ra­cao, Brazil, Mi­a­mi, and Cana­da is ex­pand­ing sales units in Eu­rope, Scan­di­navia, the Baltic states, Chi­na and Hong Kong.