India’s High Commissioner Mr. Satendar Kumar will pay a state visit to SVG during this year, the announcement was made by Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves on Monday 7th January 2019.
Gonsalves noted that the Indian government has agreed to provide US $ 1 Million dollars for the construction of a new Arrowroot Factory.
The Arrowroot Association of St. Vincent and the Grenadines manages and owns this country’s only100% state-owned agriculture manufacturing enterprise.
Gonsalves also noted at his first press conference for the year that Government owns 49% of shares in the Geothermal company.
He said SVG is pursuing the best path in geothermal energy construction and production based on feedback from donor agencies.
Once operational, the plant will supply substantially all of the country’s baseload power and bring renewable energy sources to ~73% of total power generation, well in excess of SVG’s Energy Action Plan target of 60% by 2020.
The commissioning of the plant is expected to be in approximately 2 years. The development of the plant has been ongoing for some time with Civil Works starting in Q2 2018 and turbines expected to be tendered out in 2019.
The Prime Minister told journalists that by the middle of 2019 the designs for Modern Medical Complex at Arnos Vale would be ready.
Gonsalves said for 2019 a Sports Against Crime initiative will be rolled out, along with the program, Renewal at 40 (Independence celebration) 2019-2020, which will include rehabilitation work in Kingstown.
Gonsalves while speaking about SVG’s economic outlook and performance says for 2018 it was in the region of 2-2.5%, above the average growth in Latin America and the Caribbean.
