The Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines will officially open the Montreal Greenhouse Park Facility on Monday, June 25th at 3:00 p.m.
The official opening ceremony will be addressed by Hon. St. Clair “Jimmy” Prince, Parliamentary Representative for Marriaqua, Hon. Camillo Gonsalves, Minister of Finance, Economic Planning, Sustainable Development and Information Technology, Hon. Sabato Caesar, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Rural Transformation, Industry and Labour, Mrs. Daniela Tramacere, Head of Delegation, Delegation of The European Union in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.
The feature address will be delivered by Dr. the Hon. Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
The Montreal Greenhouse Park Facility was jointly financed by the European Union Banana Accompanying Measures (BAM) Project and the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
The project pursued a two-pronged approach – increasing the competitiveness of the banana industry and agricultural diversification.
The Greenhouse Park Facility investment was borne out of the need to reduce the approximately EC$17 million fruit and vegetable annual food import bill by supplying GAP and HACCP certified produce of a very high standard to the domestic market.
This investment seeks to inject a professional agribusiness approach to fixing the supply side constraints to meeting the needs of hotels, supermarkets, yachts and cruise ships.
The Greenhouse Park Facility is expected to be leased to the private sector through a management lease.
In this regard farmers, producer groups, marketers, investors, companies or a consortium of selected persons/companies will be invited to bid for the management and operation of the facility.