Min­is­ter of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion, Sen­a­tor Has­sel Bac­chus, has wel­comed moves by French Guiana to deep­en dig­i­tal re­la­tions with Trinidad and To­ba­go.

French Guiana al­so has in­di­cat­ed its de­sire to be­come an As­so­ciate Mem­ber of the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union (CTU).

The Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter met re­cent­ly with a del­e­ga­tion from French Guiana which was led by Mrs Marie Rat­ti­er, Elect­ed Mem­ber and Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Coun­sel­lor of the Gov­ern­ment of French Guiana, re­spon­si­ble for dig­i­tal de­vel­op­ment, trans­for­ma­tion and in­no­va­tion. Ac­com­pa­ny­ing the del­e­ga­tion were the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Mr. Rod­ney Tay­lor and oth­er of­fi­cials of the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union (CTU).

A re­lease from the Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Min­istry re­ports that the high lev­el dis­cus­sions be­tween the two par­ties ex­plored op­por­tu­ni­ties for col­lab­o­ra­tion on dig­i­tal de­vel­op­ment and cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty.

“A key is­sue was the project be­ing un­der­tak­en in French Guiana to ex­tend the cur­rent fi­bre op­tic sub­ma­rine ca­ble,” the Min­istry re­counts. “With a 2026 de­liv­ery date, the ca­ble ex­ten­sion will pro­vide a di­rect con­nec­tion be­tween the ter­ri­to­ry and Eu­rope, di­ver­si­fy­ing and sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hanc­ing its In­ter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty.”

The del­e­ga­tion point­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ex­pand­ing the in­fra­struc­ture to the wider Caribbean. It al­so not­ed the po­ten­tial of satel­lite broad­band as a so­lu­tion for im­prov­ing re­gion­al dig­i­tal ac­cess.

The Min­istry re­ports that cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty was keen­ly dis­cussed, with in­for­ma­tion ex­changed on the re­spec­tive cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty en­vi­ron­ments, the chal­lenges be­ing faced and the im­por­tance of col­lab­o­ra­tion in com­bat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing cy­ber threats and breach­es.

The del­e­ga­tion al­so shared in­sights on the role of French Guiana’s Caribbean Cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty Agency with­in the French cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty land­scape.

Min­is­ter Bac­chus high­light­ed his Min­istry’s on­go­ing ef­forts to de­vel­op a na­tion­al cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty pol­i­cy and im­ple­ment stan­dard­ised se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures across Gov­ern­ment.

The Min­istry’s state­ment re­ports that he un­der­scored the im­por­tance of con­tin­u­ous mon­i­tor­ing, and sur­veil­lance, in ad­di­tion to ac­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners such as the CTU and the In­ter­na­tion­al Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Union (ITU).

As Pres­i­dent of the CTU’s Con­fer­ence of Min­is­ters, Min­is­ter Bac­chus wel­comed French Guiana’s in­ter­est in be­com­ing an As­so­ciate Mem­ber of the CTU.

“The CTU is a strong re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion and mem­ber­ship would con­sti­tute a sig­nif­i­cant step to­wards deep­er co­op­er­a­tion,” he told the del­e­ga­tion.

He al­so em­pha­sised that Trinidad and To­ba­go is com­mit­ted to a se­cure and dig­i­tal­ly con­nect­ed fu­ture for the Caribbean Re­gion.

The French Guiana del­e­ga­tion com­prised del­e­ga­tion leader Mrs Marie Rat­ti­er, the Elect­ed Mem­ber and Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Coun­sel­lor of the Gov­ern­ment of French Guiana, re­spon­si­ble for dig­i­tal de­vel­op­ment, trans­for­ma­tion and in­no­va­tion. Ms. Anne Math­ieu, Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of French Guiana’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment; and Mr. Cedric Pradel, Di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty Agency. Join­ing the meet­ing vir­tu­al­ly was Mr. Franck Ro­gi­er, Di­rec­tor of SPLANG (So­ciété Publique Lo­cale pour l'Amé­nage­ment de la Guyane).