Guyana says it is mov­ing ahead with plans to es­tab­lish a US$14 mil­lion re­gion­al food hub and that land for the fa­cil­i­ty has al­ready been iden­ti­fied on the Soes­dyke /Lin­den High­way.

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Zul­fikar Mustapha, who met with the Pres­i­dent of the Is­lam­ic De­vel­op­ment Bank (Is­DB) Dr Mo­hammed Su­laiman, em­pha­sised Guyana’s de­sire to be­come the re­gion­al food hub.

“We want Guyana to be the food hub. The pri­ma­ry pro­duc­tion hub of the Caribbean so that we could sup­ply the Caribbean. What we have, our col­leagues in the Caribbean, don’t have. We have arable flat land and abun­dant fresh wa­ter. Now with the in­vest­ment com­ing on board, we can mod­ern­ize the in­fra­struc­ture, and start ramp­ing up of the pro­duc­tions,” he said.

Guyana is the lead Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try push­ing ahead with plans to re­duce the mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar re­gion­al food im­port bill by 25 per­cent by 2025.

Mustapha said Guyana will work with the State of Ro­raima in Brazil to form a part­ner­ship in the de­vel­op­ment of the hub.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dr Ash­ni Singh said the gov­ern­ment have been in dis­cus­sions with the Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos Mia Mot­t­ley about sourc­ing in­puts from north­ern Brazil and trans­port­ing them through Guyana to Bar­ba­dos and vice ver­sa.

“We see the re­gion­al food hub as very much a re­gion­al ini­tia­tive…as a piece of in­fra­struc­ture that will con­tribute to a more ef­fi­cient mar­ket for agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts, across the en­tire Caribbean and North­ern South Amer­i­ca,” Singh said.

He said that this will al­so give rise to the grow­ing lo­gis­tics in­dus­try in Guyana mov­ing goods, ser­vices, and peo­ple. The project will be part­ly fund­ed by the gov­ern­ment.

Mustapha said the mis­sion of Guyana is clear, and that is to make the lo­cal agri­cul­ture sec­tor more com­pet­i­tive while de­vel­op­ing high-yield­ing va­ri­eties, pest-re­sis­tant and cli­mate-re­silient va­ri­eties.

Dr. Al-Jass­er, who is ona vis­it to Guyana and Suri­name, has wel­comed the idea of the hub, say­ing “I think that’s a great am­bi­tion and it’s doable and I think the high­way that will par­tic­i­pate with you in build­ing…con­nect­ing you with the largest econ­o­my in South Amer­i­ca. “You have a huge mar­ket. What­ev­er you pro­duce here, you could sell there, and what­ev­er you need you can bring from there al­so,” he said.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Sept 27, CMC –

CMC/gt/ir/2023