Raphael John-Lall

?Chile will be able to give T&T ad­vice and as­sis­tance on dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness, says Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

"Chile has, be­cause of the na­ture of their coun­try, some ex­pe­ri­ences in dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness," he said. "We are look­ing at what is hap­pen­ing in Haiti and we want to talk to the Chileans more on this mat­ter," he said. Man­ning added that there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty of a ma­jor nat­ur­al dis­as­ter hit­ting this coun­try. Man­ning dis­closed this to the me­dia at a joint news con­fer­ence with the Chilean Pres­i­dent Michelle Bachelet on Tues­day night at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's.

On Tues­day night, Bachelet made a state vis­it to T&T. She held bi-lat­er­al talks with Man­ning and signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Agree­ment on en­er­gy mat­ters. "We al­so dis­cussed tonight (Tues­day), the whole ques­tions of dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness in the con­text of what is hap­pen­ing in Haiti," Man­ning said. Man­ning de­scribed Chile as a rapid­ly de­vel­op­ing coun­try and said Chile had a lot to of­fer T&T. "Chile has been a coun­try that has been evolv­ing rapid­ly and has been iden­ti­fied as a best-prac­tice coun­try in a num­ber of in­stances, es­pe­cial­ly those in so­cial de­vel­op­ment and to bring our own coun­try for­ward...we are sat­is­fied that Chile is able to as­sist us," he said.