Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Kennedy Swarats­ingh is in Paraguay to lead T&T’s del­e­ga­tion at the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank’s (IDB) an­nu­al meet­ings.

Swarats­ingh will at­tend the meet­ing in his ca­pac­i­ty as Gov­er­nor for Trinidad and To­ba­go on the boards of gov­er­nors of the IDB and IDB In­vest.

The 66th an­nu­al meet­ing of the board of gov­er­nors of the IDB and the 40th an­nu­al meet­ing of the board of gov­er­nors of the In­ter-Amer­i­can In­vest­ment Cor­po­ra­tion is tak­ing place in Asun­ción, Paraguay. The meet­ings be­gan on Wednes­day and are set to run un­til Sun­day.

Min­is­ter Swarats­ingh said the meet­ings of­fer an im­por­tant op­por­tu­ni­ty for T&T to en­gage with its longest-stand­ing de­vel­op­men­tal fi­nance part­ner and to iden­ti­fy prac­ti­cal re­spons­es to the coun­try’s key growth and de­vel­op­ment chal­lenges. He said dis­cus­sions at the meet­ing will fo­cus sig­nif­i­cant­ly on ac­cel­er­at­ing eco­nom­ic growth and de­vel­op­ment through greater pri­vate sec­tor en­gage­ment, a pri­or­i­ty that aligns close­ly with the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s man­date to pro­mote sus­tain­able growth, in­vest­ment and eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion.

A re­lease from the Min­istry stat­ed the Plan­ning and Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs Min­is­ter will use the mar­gins of the an­nu­al meet­ings in Paraguay to con­vene a se­ries of high-lev­el bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions, in­clud­ing meet­ings with IDB pres­i­dent Ilan Gold­fa­jn, the gen­er­al man­ag­er of IDB In­vest James Scriv­en and the new­ly ap­point­ed gen­er­al man­ag­er of IDB Lab Gra­ham Macmil­lan. There will al­so be a se­ries of en­gage­ments with oth­er se­nior mem­bers of the Bank’s man­age­ment team and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of oth­er par­tic­i­pat­ing in­sti­tu­tions.

T&T’s del­e­ga­tion will fea­ture of­fi­cials from both min­istries, in­clud­ing Oma­tee Geawan-Ram­dass, coun­sel­lor for T&T in the Of­fice of the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor for the Caribbean Con­stituen­cy; Karen Boodan, se­nior le­gal ad­vi­sor, Min­istry of Fi­nance and Reni­ka Hug­gins, debt eco­nom­ic an­a­lyst in the Debt Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion, Min­istry of Fi­nance.

This year’s Meet­ings al­so mark Min­is­ter Swarats­ingh’s first par­tic­i­pa­tion in the IDB an­nu­al meet­ings in his ca­pac­i­ty as Gov­er­nor for T&T, pro­vid­ing an im­por­tant plat­form to ad­vance the coun­try’s pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties and strength­en en­gage­ment with the lead­er­ship of the Bank and key re­gion­al part­ners.

The Meet­ings bring to­geth­er the Gov­er­nors, who are pri­mar­i­ly Min­is­ters of Fi­nance, pres­i­dents of Cen­tral Banks and oth­er se­nior au­thor­i­ties to fa­cil­i­tate struc­tured de­lib­er­a­tions and the adop­tion of res­o­lu­tions ad­dress­ing the de­vel­op­ment chal­lenges and pri­or­i­ties of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

The Min­istry said this year’s dis­cus­sions will ad­dress mat­ters of strate­gic im­por­tance to this coun­try, in­clud­ing op­tions re­lat­ed to de­vel­op­ment fi­nanc­ing and debt man­age­ment, as well as op­por­tu­ni­ties to deep­en part­ner­ships that sup­port the coun­try’s cur­rent de­vel­op­ment agen­da.

The min­istry re­lease stat­ed, “The en­gage­ments come at an op­por­tune time, as the cur­rent IDB coun­try ctrat­e­gy for Trinidad and To­ba­go con­cludes this year and con­sul­ta­tions be­gin on pri­or­i­ty ar­eas that will shape the next coun­try strat­e­gy, which is ex­pect­ed to en­ter prepa­ra­tion in the near term.”