Business View Caribbean | June 2019

9 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN JUNE 2019 ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES $27 MILLION GEOTHERMAL ENERGY PROJECT LAUNCHED S t. Vincent and the Grenadines took a major step towards a cleaner and more secure energy future recently, launching a multi- million-dollar geothermal energy drilling project made possible with financing mobilized by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB). CDB secured US$27 million in financing for the project through contributions from partners, including the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), the European Union’s Caribbean Investment Facility (EU-CIF), and the government of New Zealand. Speaking at the launch ceremony, Vice President of Operations of CDB, Monica La Bennett shared the context behind the bank’s heightened involvement in the renewable energy sector in recent years: “Over the past five years, the promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency has been the focus of the bank as a means of increasing energy security in many of our borrowing member countries. The cost of energy in the region is among the highest globally; and this impacts our competitiveness, [and] growth prospects and [it also] makes us vulnerable to oil price volatility. Thus, CDB has been supporting the use of our natural resources, solar, wind and geothermal, to produce clean and lower cost energy,” La Bennett said. OPENING L INES