President opens 1st International Renewable Energy Investors Conference with an appeal to help Maldives overcome the energy issue

President Dr Mohamed Waheed today opened the 1st International Renewable Energy Investors Conference with an appeal to help Maldives overcome the energy issue.

Highlighting that the Maldives spends about 35 per cent of its GDP on the energy sector, President Waheed said the country consume large amounts of fossil fuel.

“The environmental imperative is obviously there, but for us a developmental imperative is more urgent”, said the President.

President Waheed said due to the geographical nature of the country, providing electricity at affordable costs was a major challenge in the Maldives. He said as electricity was unaffordable to most of the people, the government has to provide subsidies.

“This situation obviously cannot continue for long. That is why we have decided that we must invest in renewable energy in order for us to be able to make the nest leap forward in our country’s development”, he said.

Referring to Maldives Scaling Up Renewable Energy Investment Plan (Maldives SREP IP) under the umbrella of the Climate Investment Funds, President Waheed said now the Maldives would be able to move forward in the renewable energy area.

He said:

“I believe that during the two days that you are here, you will be able to …find ways contributing to the development of the Maldives and also makes commercially good sense”.

In his speech at the inauguration function, President Waheed highlighted some other environmental problems that the Maldives was facing such as the issue of water.

He, therefore, said that the solutions discussed at the Conference must not only focus on the energy sector but that the solutions should be linked to other sectors and “look into integrated solutions”.

The conference is being held to build awareness among international investors and businesses regarding the potential opportunities available in the renewable energy sector in Maldives. The conference hopes to provide opportunities for investors, managers, project developers and industry stakeholders to meet, share experiences, discuss lessons learned and explore new opportunities.