His Excellency Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali has called on the Caribbean shipping industry to develop an urgent policy document backed by regional and international lenders to unlock investment in the region’s ports.
Delivering the keynote address on Monday at the opening of the 56th Annual General Meeting, Conference and Exhibition of the Caribbean Shipping Association (CSA) at the Marriott Hotel, the president proposed that the plan be backed by the Caribbean Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and IDB Invest.
He told the delegates that it should set out the fiscal incentives, banking support and public-private partnership models needed to speed up port modernisation.
“We need to come up with a plan that allows private capital to merge with a public good,” President Ali said.
The Guyanese leader said the proposal responds to five challenges the region must confront: high shipping costs and the expense of regional connectivity, uneven port infrastructure, weak inter-Caribbean trade, the threat of climate-related disasters, and geopolitical instability.
Together, he said, they reveal the urgent need for a more coordinated, forward-looking and investment-driven approach to Caribbean shipping.
He said critical investment has been delayed across the region, leaving many ports unable to meet today’s demands, pointing to a 2018 IDB study which found that most Caribbean ports are 50 years or older.
“If we look at budgets across the region, you will see that this is not a priority at the moment,” he said.
President Ali said this has a direct cost for Caribbean people, citing a May 2026 International Monetary Fund (IMF) working paper which found that every Caribbean country except Jamaica pays shipping costs above the global average, costs that eventually show up in the price of food, construction and other goods.
“Ultimately, high shipping costs become a cost-of-living problem for our people and a competitiveness problem for our businesses,” he said.
He offered Guyana as an example of the investment model at work. He said private investment in shore bases, laydown yards and port facilities on the Demerara River over the last four to five years is close to or more than US$1 billion, and the government is working with Bechtel on the deepwater port. It is also in talks with investors including US EXIM and the Qatar Investment Authority.
“You have to be aggressive. You have to be willing to open up the market. You have to be willing to bring partners together. But we can only do so if we create the model,” President Ali underscored.
He also questioned whether financing agencies had been invited to the conference.
“Are we speaking to ourselves or are we speaking to a system that can help each other?” he asked.
The four-day Conference is themed “Building a More Connected, Resilient, and Competitive Caribbean.” It runs until October 28 at the Guyana Marriott Hotel in Kingston, Georgetown.
Also attending were the Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh; Minister of Public Utilities and Aviation, Deodat Indar; members of the diplomatic corps; private sector leaders; CBA President, William Brown, among other dignitaries.