Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has in­sist­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go has no plans to leave Cari­com, de­spite her Gov­ern­ment’s fo­cus on strength­en­ing ties with coun­tries out­side the re­gion.

Speak­ing to re­porters in To­ba­go to­day dur­ing her first of­fi­cial vis­it to the is­land since be­ing re-elect­ed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the coun­try must ex­pand its in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships while re­main­ing part of the re­gion­al bloc.

“What I did say, and I’ll re­peat, is we must al­so look to oth­ers. We have to look to oth­ers in the in­ter­na­tion­al are­na. So for ex­am­ple, we are look­ing to the UAE, we are look­ing to Qatar, look­ing to Bahrain, look­ing to Eu­rope. We can­not keep closed doors and ex­pect things to change,” she said.

She added that Cari­com will con­tin­ue as a block but stressed the need to at­tract new in­vest­ment. “So CARI­COM will re­main as a block, we will re­main as part of the block, but we have to open our wings. We have to fly. We have to go else­where. We have to get in­vestors. CARI­COM may have in­vestors, but they need in­vestors just as we do… So no, no mis­chief. We have no in­ten­tion of leav­ing CARI­COM,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.