The Maldives has concluded the Joint Partnership Forum 2019 at a closing ceremony held today at Kurumba Maldives. This event sub entitled as ‘Investing in a resilient and sustainable Maldives’ was held at Kurumba Maldives and was intended as a platform for all of our current and prospective development partners, from the world over, to discuss ways to collaborate with the Maldives to take its development agenda forward.
The event, comprised of a series of sessions that shone a light on the Maldives’ key priority areas for development, was a resounding success, with several of our partners committing to helping the Maldives’ achieve its development aspirations.
Whilst the event was ongoing several Memoranda of Understanding were signed securing many grants and loans at concessional rates, which will benefit the Maldives’ ongoing development projects. Two MOUs were signed with the Saudi Fund for Development, each worth over 93,750,000 Saudi Riyals: for the development of the Maldives’ fisheries sector; and for the implementation of an affordable housing scheme.
The Maldives further signed an MOU in the field of Fisheries and Pelagic Fishing between Bangladesh and the Maldives; an agreement with the Asian Development Bank for the provision of funds to establish a national single window system for international trade - which will facilitate the standardization of our customs and international trade relevant procedures, thereby enhancing their efficiency; a development objective grant agreement with the government of the USA to improve our continued democracy strengthening and governance enhancing efforts; and an agreement with the Japanese government for non-project grant aid under the Economic and Social Development Program.
The Maldives Partnership Forum was jointly led by the President’s Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance. A total of 63 delegations and a total of 133 delegates attended this event, making this one of the largest multilateral events to be held in the Maldives in over a decade, signalling the keenness of our international friends and partners to positively engage with us, and the higher global standing obtained for the Maldives under President’ Ibrahim Solih’s administration.
