Havana, Cuba, Mar 18 – Kenya has invited Cuba to co-sponsor the High-Level Conference on Sustainable Blue Economy Conference scheduled to be hosted by Kenya in November 2018.
Speaking when she met the Cuban Minister for Trade and Investment, Mr Rodrigo Malmierca, Cabinet Secretary Monica Juma said the Conference will provide a platform to engage on action-oriented strategies pertaining to a sustainable blue economy that is people-centric with ocean driven investments.
“Kenya is fully committed to exploiting the blue economy in a sustainable manner. As coastal countries, Kenya and Cuba have enormous opportunities to optimally exploit the water resources in the crucial areas such as fisheries, aquaculture, shipping and maritime transport, tourism, renewable and non-renewable energy as well as blue carbon,” CS Juma said.
Amb. Juma who is with President Uhuru Kenyatta in Havana, Cuba for a state visit, informed the Minister that Kenya will also be co-chairing the 2020 Oceans Conference with Portugal which will be hosting the Conference.
Prior to this important Conference, Kenya will have another opportunity to host the preparatory meetings of the Conference.
“In view of the importance of the water resources to Cuba, I invite the government of Cuba to participate at the highest possible level,” said CS Juma.
Minister Malmierca said his government was more than willing to share experiences gained over the years in areas of health and disease control and provide technical expertise the country has gained through many years of research and development (R&D).
The two Ministers also agreed to urgently come up with a comprehensive economic agreement that will be structured to allow for two alternating meetings between Nairobi and Havana every year by technical teams to review progress.
Kenya is also seeking to benefit from Cuba’s well-documented tick vaccine that completely eliminates the vectors in livestock.
CS Juma also reiterated Kenya’s commitment to strengthening mutual support both at the bilateral and multilateral levels. To this end, the two Ministers agreed to work together to bring on track the collapsed World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations mainly on agriculture. They agreed to give full support to upcoming WTO mini-ministerial that will be held in India in coming days.
“Kenya and Cuba will at the same time collaborate on issues of Climate Change to mitigate future disasters such as the recent hurricane Irma which affected Cuba and the Caribbean region,” said CS Juma.
