Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar says InvesTT will set up an office in Japan as soon as possible. She spoke at yesterday's news briefing after the first Japan-Caricom summit at the Trinidad Hilton, St Ann's.InvesTT is an investment promotion agency of the Ministry of Trade that informs prospective investors of business opportunities in the country.Persad-Bissessar said the decision was taken after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe invited the T&T Government to establish an embassy in his country.
She said her Government "looks forward to the establishment of an InvesTT presence in Tokyo in order to accommodate trade and investment flows."The leaders of most Caribbean nations attended the summit.The chairman of Caricom, Antigua-Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne, described the summit as "very productive" and said Caricom "welcomed Japan's recognition of the vulnerabilities of our small island developing and low-lying coastal states."
He said Caricom urged the Japan Government that energy and renewable energy "should be central to the post-2015 developmental agenda."Browne said Japanese assistance was also sought to establish tools at the international level to implement a preventative approach for natural disasters in Small Island Development States (SIDS) and special consideration should be given to financing for early warning systems to reduce loss and facilitate recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation.Abe said he hoped the achievements of the summit would be a springboard for more positive developments in the future between the region and Japan.Abe left yesterday for Colombia, the third stop on his Latin American and Caribbean trip, then goes to Chile and Brazil. He visited Mexico before arriving in Port-of-Spain on Sunday.
Two agreements signed:�2 The US$15 million Japan-Caribbean Climate Change Partnership to benefit Grenada, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia and Dominica to build the capacity to cope with climate change.The signatories to that agreement were Japanese Ambassador in Port-of-Spain Yoshimasa Tezuka and the UN resident co-ordinator and UN representative in T&T Richard Blewitt.
�2 Memorandum of Co-operation on Promotion of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in the Eastern Caribbean region between the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA).The signatories were the acting vice-president of the CDB Nigel Romano, general manager, country department, Caribbean, of the IDB, Gerard Johnson, and vice- president of JICA Toshiyuki Kuroyangi.