President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) is due to travel next week to Guyana and Suriname, on an agenda focused on cooperation in the energy area and in which there will be an exploratory dialogue on possible projects to connect the Guyana electricity grid with the state of Roraima.
According to interlocutors, the president’s trip to the two border countries had been planned since before the coronavirus pandemic, but had to be postponed on different occasions due to the Covid-19 crisis. The trip should last two days, starting on January 20th.
Although they share borders with Brazil, both countries register a timid trade with their neighbor. With Suriname, Brazil exported US$ 38.5 million in 2021 and imported US$ 1.2 million. With Guyana, the flow of trade was US$ 111.7 million exported and US$ 6.8 million imported.
The plan is for Bolsonaro and the presidents of the two countries to deal mainly with energy cooperation. The president must pass through the capitals Georgetown, in Guyana, and Paramaribo, in Suriname. The two South American countries registered recent discoveries in the areas of oil and gas.
The idea, say diplomats, is to take advantage of the Guyanese and Surinamese demand for cooperation projects in energy and other areas for a political rapprochement with Brazil.
Presidential visits to Guyana and Suriname are infrequent. According to Itamaraty, Dilma Rousseff (PT) was the last president to visit Paramaribo, in 2013, due to the UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) summit. Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) was the last Brazilian president to pass through Georgetown. He was in the Guyanese capital in 2007 for the Rio Group summit.
Also on the menu of conversations is an initial dialogue about possible plans for connecting Guyana’s energy network with Roraima. The state in northern Brazil is the only one that is not part of the National Interconnected System (SIN) and has depended for years on imported electricity from Venezuela, but with the crisis in the Caribbean country, it has increasingly been supplied by thermoelectric plants.
One of the priorities of the Bolsonaro government is the construction of the Tucuruà line, to connect Roraima to the SIN. The assessment, however, is that the trip to Guyana and Suriname can be used to assess new partnership options to strengthen the state’s electricity supply.
Bolsonaro’s agenda includes meetings with Presidents Irfaan Ali, of Guyana, and Chandrikapersad Santokhi, of Suriname. Diplomats are still trying to confirm whether there will be a trilateral meeting. According to interlocutors, in light of recent discoveries, the governments of both countries expressed interest in knowing how regulatory bodies in Brazil, such as the National Petroleum Agency, work.
There should also be talks on training police forces in Guyana and Suriname and a presentation on the functioning of the Apex (Brazilian Agency for the Promotion of Exports and Investments). Finally, discussions on consular issues are on the agenda, since there is a significant community of Brazilians in both countries who are dedicated to mining.
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