The CARIFORUM area presents a myriad of alternatives for EU companies within the highway, water and sanitation, electrical energy infrastructure sectors.
On this context, the CARIFORUM-EU Financial Partnership Settlement (EPA) is a key software for EU companies to entry and spend money on the Caribbean.
This was revealed by David Mogollón, Head of Cooperation of the Delegation of the
European Union to Barbados, the Japanese Caribbean States, the OECS and CARICOM/CARIFORUM at a webinar held on October 19 throughout which the findings of an EU-
funded examine on enterprise alternatives in Infrastructure and Utilities in CARIFORUM have been offered. It was the fourth webinar on sectoral commerce and funding alternatives within the
CARIFORUM area throughout the framework of the CARIFORUM-EU EPA.
Stating that the EU was proud to be commemorating the 15-year anniversary of the signing of the CARIFORUM-EU EPA this yr, Mr. Mogollón famous that this Settlement helps the
situations for elevated funding and financial progress, together with within the infrastructure and utilities sectors. “With 65%-75% of CARIFORUM Member States’ service sectors open to EU operators, EU companies can set up industrial presence and spend money on the area throughout these explicit sectors and lots of different associated ones,” he stated.
Mogollón additionally underscored the significance of the EU World Gateway Technique, which is the
EU’s provide to scale up high-quality, sustainable investments, by selling an enabling
surroundings that enables for such investments to occur. “The World Gateway Funding
Agenda (GGIA) identifies mission packages by which public finance is mobilised to create the
situations and predictability that convey additional EU personal sector investments. Renewable
vitality and water are precedence sectors for the GGIA in lots of CARIFORUM international locations, making
alternatives in infrastructure and utilities notably well timed and related,” he added.
Stephane Quash, Director of the European Enterprise Chamber in Trinidad and Tobago, who
opened the primary session on Enterprise Alternatives and the CARIFORUM-EU EPA, famous that
there are fascinating alternatives for EU funding within the sector via the EPA, the EU
World Gateway Funding Agenda, performance- primarily based contracts and public personal
partnerships. He added that the need to develop local weather resilient infrastructure within the
area offers a possibility for EU gray and inexperienced funding.
Jean Marco Pou Fernández, President EuroChamber of Commerce of the Dominican
Republic (DR) opened the second session on Personal Sector Views and highlighted that the CARIFORUM -EU EPA offers quite a few advantages to each EU and CARIFORUM traders reminiscent of lowered tariffs and regulatory cooperation. He advisable that the important thing to doing enterprise efficiently within the DR is to develop partnerships with native companies.
Each EuroChambers added that they stand prepared to help EU companies who wish to commerce or spend money on the area.
The sectoral report notes that the Caribbean is a strategic area with various economies that current vital alternatives within the infrastructure and utilities sector and that EU traders can faucet into alternatives estimated at USD 10 billion for brand new infrastructure and USD 9.5 billion for upkeep and asset substitute wanted to fulfill the Sustainable Growth Targets throughout the Caribbean area. Among the many key sectors in want of great investments are highway infrastructure, water and sanitation and vitality. These sectors are additionally elementary for propelling financial progress, enhancing the area’s competitiveness and folks’s life situations.
Within the highway infrastructure sector, particular alternatives that EU traders can faucet into embrace the development of latest highways and rehabilitation of highway networks in addition to the
mainstreaming of local weather resilience in highway infrastructure via consultancy providers,
modern highway surfacing and restore applied sciences and digital methods to reinforce highway planning and administration. Water provide and sanitation enchancment initiatives additionally provide fascinating enterprise prospects within the CARIFORUM area the place steady entry to water provide shouldn’t be at all times a given and fewer than 20% of wastewater produced is recovered.
Moreover, the shift to renewable energies within the area additionally requires investments in energy grid modernisation and good grid applied sciences.
The report concludes that with cautious and strategic engagement, the area generally is a fertile
floor for sustainable improvement, leveraging European experience and the CARIFORUM-EU EPA to spice up financial situations and improve the standard of life throughout the Caribbean.
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