Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to trans­form the coun­try’s per­sis­tent sar­gas­sum sea­weed prob­lem in­to a po­ten­tial­ly lu­cra­tive in­dus­try, with Cab­i­net ap­prov­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a com­mer­cial arm to at­tract pri­vate in­vest­ment and de­vel­op prod­ucts for in­ter­na­tion­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and cos­met­ics mar­kets.

Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Bud­get 2027 de­bate in the Sen­ate, re­veal­ing plans to con­vert the sea­weed, which has plagued coastal com­mu­ni­ties for years, in­to a range of com­mer­cial­ly valu­able prod­ucts.

The ini­tia­tive will be spear­head­ed by the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) and the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, with the Gov­ern­ment al­so seek­ing in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships to de­vel­op a re­gion­al sar­gas­sum in­dus­try.

“For years, we have paid to lift it off our beach­es and bury it, get­ting noth­ing back. This Gov­ern­ment has cho­sen a dif­fer­ent course,” Swarats­ingh said. He added that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to process the sea­weed in­to biochar, agri­cul­tur­al bios­tim­u­lants, biodegrad­able ma­te­ri­als and high-val­ue ex­tracts that could be sold to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and cos­met­ics man­u­fac­tur­ers.

The ini­tia­tive forms part of the Gov­ern­ment’s wider eco­nom­ic re­or­gan­i­sa­tion plan, which seeks to cre­ate new in­dus­tries, di­ver­si­fy ex­ports and gen­er­ate ad­di­tion­al for­eign ex­change.

“The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter has di­rect­ed, and Cab­i­net has agreed that a com­mer­cial arm be es­tab­lished to li­cence its de­vel­op­ment from joint ven­tures and at­tract pri­vate cap­i­tal,” he told the Sen­ate. Swarats­ingh said the Gov­ern­ment al­so in­tends to work with the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) and the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of a re­gion­al in­dus­try cen­tred on sar­gas­sum. The com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of sar­gas­sum is not an en­tire­ly new con­cept, with pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives and pri­vate-sec­tor pro­pos­als ex­plor­ing its po­ten­tial use in agri­cul­ture, man­u­fac­tur­ing and cos­met­ics.

How­ev­er, the lat­est an­nounce­ment sig­nals a move to­wards es­tab­lish­ing a ded­i­cat­ed com­mer­cial struc­ture to fa­cil­i­tate in­vest­ment and in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment.

Ear­li­er in his con­tri­bu­tion, Swarats­ingh al­so ref­er­enced $100 mil­lion in CAF (De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean) fi­nanc­ing for coastal pro­tec­tion, re­for­esta­tion and the sar­gas­sum re­sponse in To­ba­go.

He did not spec­i­fy how much of that fund­ing would be di­rect­ed to­wards sar­gas­sum com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion, when the pro­posed com­mer­cial arm would be­come op­er­a­tional or how much pri­vate in­vest­ment the Gov­ern­ment hopes to at­tract.