TRINIDAD HOSTS HIGH LEVEL CARICOM-JAPAN PUBLIC-PRIVATE ECONOMIC FORUM

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Member States will on Tuesday 22 November participate in a high level public-private sector business seminar with Japan, in Trinidad and Tobago.

The CARICOM-Japan Business Seminar is part of a wider CARICOM-Japan Public-Private Joint Economic Mission from 20-25 November 2011, to explore investment opportunities in the Region. This Mission is as a direct result of a meeting between CARICOM Foreign Ministers and their Japanese counterpart in Tokyo, August 2010.

The Business Seminar will be conducted at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.

The Japanese delegation includes some of the most successful Japanese Private Sector Business Corporations including Fujitsu, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Marubeni and Hitachi, as well as the public sector business entities including the Japan Bank of International Cooperation and the Japan Oil, Gas and Metal National Corporation.

The opening ceremony of the seminar will features addresses by Mr. Yasushi Takase, Deputy Director-General, Latin American and Caribbean Affairs Bureau and Economic Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan; Mr. Elvis Newton Representative of the Chair of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations, CARICOM, and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security Labour, and Social Security, St. Kitts and Nevis; and Dr. Denny Lewis-Bynoe, Director, Economics Department, Caribbean Development Bank.

It is anticipated that CARICOM Member States will use this engagement to promote investment opportunities with Japan such as energy and Information and Communications Technology.