China/Barbados relationship boosted
Wednesday September 07 2011 | 06:03 AM

BARBADOS MINISTER of Finance Christopher Sinckler has signed onto several agreements totalling BDS$15.7 million with China. 

The agreements signalled the start to several areas of co-operation agreed upon during Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s state visit to China earlier this year.

“During that visit, the principals of both sides were able to agree on new areas of co-operation that would provide assistance from the people and government of China to Barbados to build out a number of areas of co-operation, among which would be the replacement of the scoreboard at the gymnasium – which, of course, is one of the projects that we collaborated with many years ago. ...The second area is in the facilitation of the Chinese language being a major part of the learning apparatus of Barbados with the exchange of a Chinese language teacher,” Sinckler noted.

During the official ceremony at Government Headquarters yesterday, he stated that next week’s Third China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Co-operation Forum in Trinidad will evaluate the progress of the 2007 pledge by the Chinese government that it would be spending in excess of BDS$1 billion in investments in the Caribbean, region-wide.

“I believe that the conference in Trinidad is part of this process; to evaluate what has happened in that process so far and to look at what projects have been undertaken and what future projects can be engaged between countries in the region and the People’s Republic of China,” he said, adding that these projects would be prescribed over several areas, including technical support in terms of inputs for infrastructural projects.

Meanwhile, Chinese Ambassador to Barbados Wei Qiang stated that China would continue to enhance its relationship with countries, including Barbados.

“It is a very firm Chinese government policy to enhance...our unity and mutually beneficial co-operation with developing countries in the world, especially at a time when we are facing a lingering world-wide financial crisis,” he stated.