By: Staff Writer
June 17, 2025
A senior official from the Brazilian Ministry of Planning and Budget said on a panel at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Caribbean Development Bank’s Board of Governors held in Brasilia that Brazil will implement an “open air policy,” to increase travel between the Caribbean and the South American country.
João Villaverde, Secretary of Institutional Affairs within the Ministry of Planning and Budget in Brazil, said that Brazil will fulfill its goal to build more relationships with the Caribbean with regard to commerce, tourism and infrastructure.
There will be plans for an “open air policy,” with the Caribbean as a way to increase tourism to the region.
He also said: “The relationship with the Caribbean countries was born in May 30, 2023 when President Lula gathered, with all the presidents of the 12 countries of South America here in Brasilia, and together they built the Brasilia consensus.”
The Brasilia Consensus is a consensus-building mechanism, which aims to strengthen ties between the neighboring countries that make up South America, promote cooperation and project the voice of South America in the world.
Villaverde added: “It’s a very transparent text, in which all leaders from South America, left, center and right wing leaders, regardless of ideology, of political stances, they combined in a consensus that it was the right timing to rebuild and build in infrastructure, cultural and environmental ties.
“After that, we immediately in the Ministry of Planning and Budget, and together with the Minister of External Relations of Brazil, we built this policy, which is a combination of public works, public engineering inside Brazil, and a combination of our relationship With the South American countries.
Brazil has decided to work on the routes it had with the Caribbean and developed the Five Routes Strategy. The first Caribbean nation in the Five Routes Strategy was Guyana because it had a significant amount of territory on the South American continent, including a portion of the Amazon jungle.
Brazil has committed to building a number of roads and waterways in the Caribbean, as well as invest in digital integration with Guyana.
Villaverde also said: “This is the most Caribbean of them all, what we think we can add and contribute with the Caribbean countries and vice versa. Here we have the Amapa state, where you have the Santana port.
“The Santana port is being rebuilt to receive more imports that you can shift to the Dominican Republic, to Trinidad and Tobago, to Jamaica, so on and so forth.
“We can export more goods from Brazil that can reduce inflation in Caribbean countries. And reduce inflation is always good. Whenever you are, whatever you are, to have low inflation is always good. And we can import more from the Caribbean countries. And we need a good port to connect that.”