Following President Bharrat Jagdeo’s recent visit to Libya a team from the Libyan Trade and Investment Agency on Thursday met with him at State House to continue discussions on establishing stronger trade and economic partnerships between the countries.

Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Manniram Prashad accompanied the team which was headed by Mohamed Kouja, Aymin Matri and Yussef L Habi, a press release from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said. The meeting included talks on investing in agriculture, forestry and hydropower.

According to GINA, during Jagdeo’s January trip to Libya it was agreed that Libya would send a committee to open the Libyan People’s Bureau here. Also, Guyana had accumulated a significant degree of debt from Libya for which Jagdeo had lobbied for a write-off. No agreement has been made in this regard as yet.

Meanwhile, the president noted that his position has always been to further Guyana’s political, economic and social interests abroad and his recent visit to Libya and Greece has been made with the same purpose.

Jagdeo said he believes that Guyana’s economic interests should be pursued in the Middle East because of the difficulty of raising capital in western markets due to the credit crunch.

President Jagdeo said Libya has a huge sovereign wealth fund comprising billions of dollars which it is now investing in Africa and around the world.