St. Kitts Delegation Attend PetroCaribe Summit
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St. Kitts' Energy Minister Dr. E. Asim Martin
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CIENFUEGOS, CUBA (DECEMBER 20, 2007) - St. Kitts' Energy Minister Dr. Asim Martin arrived Cienfuegos, Cuba early Thursday morning to participate in the Fourth Petrocaribe Summit, scheduled to begin on Friday.
St. Kitts' Energy Ministry's Permanent Secretary Oaklyn Peets, and Press Attaché Charles Jong accompany Dr. Martin, who heads the St. Kitts delegation. The summit will be held at the Jagua Hotel in Cienfuegos, located some 155 miles southeast of Havana.
According to Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Alejandro Gonzalez at a press conference in Havana on Wednesday, heads of state for Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Haiti, Jamaica and Nicaragua will attend the meeting. Raul Castro, first vice president of the Council of State, is heading the Cuban delegation.
Bahamas, Grenada, Saint Lucia and Surinam are the other member countries of Petrocaribe, a mechanism of energy cooperation among developing countries, based on the principles of solidarity, and special and differentiated treatment of the least developed countries that have little energy resources.
Representatives of Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, who have attended previous meetings, and Guatemala and Honduras, which will attend the summit for the first time, will also participate in the Cienfuegos meeting.
Gonzalez added that participants in the meeting will review the implementation of agreements and will exchange opinions on joint efforts to consolidate Petrocaribe as a mechanism of exemplary cooperation and integration in the region. ~~Adz:Right~~
St. Kitts and Nevis operationalized the Petrocaribe agreement on December 6, 2007, receiving its first shipment of 6,876 barrels (294,000 US gallons) of diesel fuel, which will supply the electricity generation plant and will be replenished every 10 days. The 40% reduction of immediate cash outlay for the fuel, which will now be financed over a number of years, allows participating Governments like St. Kitts and Nevis, to channel more of its resources towards improving the quality of life for all Kittitians and Nevisians.
About Petrocaribe
Petrocaribe was founded on June 29, 2005, during the first energy meeting of heads of State and Government held in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, as part of an initiative boosted by the Venezuelan government. The second meeting was held in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in September 2006, and the third one took place in Caracas in August 2007.
Petrocaribe is a strategic mechanism of energy security rather than a commercial or regular instrument to supply oil, thus its importance to mitigate significantly the adverse effects of soaring oil prices on the economies that depend on oil imports.
Petrocaribe is an extension of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) to manage energy resources, which are indispensable to achieve independence and economic development.
