T&T
to give US$38m to Caricom Fund
The Bahamas
Petroleumworldtt.com
03 09 08
Trinidad and Tobago will contribute US$38 million
towards Caricom's US$250 million Regional Development
Fund (RDF).
A further US$29 million is to be provided by the
other Caricom member states through the Petroleum
Fund established by the Prime Minister Patrick
Manning administration in 2004.
In addition, the Manning administration has decided
to allocate an additional $7 million towards the
Petroleum Fund for Caricom member states which
will take its total to $500 million a year.
Manning made these announcements during a news
conference at the Sheraton Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas,
at the two-day 19th Inter-Sessional Meeting of
the Caricom Heads of Government Conference.
In announcing these new multimillion dollar allocations
from this country towards the betterment of Caricom,
Manning insisted they were not being done at the
sacrifice of the domestic affairs of Trinidad and
Tobago as global oil prices have now crossed US$100
a barrel.
"We are making these contributions in circumstances
where we are able to afford it. The minute that
that affordability questions arise, whether we
can afford it or not, then we will have to make
adjustments," Manning said.
He said that when the Petroleum
Fund was established in 2004, it was capitalised
at $28 million when
oil prices were about US$30 per barrel and when
they crossed US$50 a barrel, the Government opened
a "special window" of funding to be available
for the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States
(OECS) countries at around $25 million.
Manning said his administration
would maintain "that
level of contribution" to the fund as long
as oil prices did not dip below US$60 per barrel.
"The new window (for the OECS) has been put
in place in the context of oil prices crossing
US$100 per barrel. The Cabinet is yet to determine,
but we will determine what would be the upset oil
price below which we will be unable to sustain
it," Manning said.
The Caricom Heads had determined that US$120 million
of the US$250 RDF should be set up by the Caricom
member states.
"Trinidad and Tobago has agreed to use the
Petroleum Fund to fund a substantial portion of
that, US$20 million in the first instance and a
short-fall of $9.66 million from some of the other
territories plus our own assessed contribution
of $37.07 million," Manning said.
Trinidad and Tobago will contribute
$18 million in the first tranche towards the
RDF plus "the
US$20 million short fall for the completion of
the fund."
"So that Trinidad and Tobago will put in
US$38 million initially and we expect to captialise
the fund at US$60 million, the other countries
will put in US$38 million, I think it is the rest
of the funding," Manning said.
Story
by Juhel Browne from The Trinidad
Express
The
Trinidad Express
Sunday, March 9th 2008
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