The chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) has called on Caribbean and Latin American nations to stop competing with each other and instead forge a regional pact to strengthen trade and energy security against global challenges.
Speaking at a Private Sector Dialogue during the 56th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Tuesday, Capt. Gerald Gouveia Jnr. said the region must leverage its collective assets to compete globally while helping each other meet domestic obligations.
“We now have to stop competing with each other and start competing with the world, because we are competing with the Middle East, we are competing with Asia, we’re competing with Europe, and if we don’t start lobbying our governments to remove these barriers for private sector trade to allow us to do what we need to do we can’t develop that resilience in energy security,” he said.
Responding to a question on energy security, Gouveia said countries must look at energy infrastructure regionally rather than duplicating efforts. “If we have refineries in Trinidad, if we have deposits that are in Latin America, we need to figure out how we connect the logistics highways,” he said.
On trade, he said governments must remove tariff and non-tariff barriers to facilitate investment and build meaningful business partnerships that strengthen the region’s position in the global market.
Gouveia also noted that some nations had established ties with Europe and more distant partners while failing to connect with their regional neighbours, warning that this must change for the region to succeed.
