ST. VINCENT PRIME MINISTER'S ASIAN MYSTERY TOUR

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRIDGETOWN 000609 SIPDIS SIPDIS SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/07/2016 TAGS: PGOV PREL EINV EAIR OFDP OVIP PINR MY SN VC XL SUBJECT: ST. VINCENT PRIME MINISTER'S ASIAN MYSTERY TOUR REF: A. BRIDGETOWN 429 ¶B. BRIDGETOWN 239 Classified By: DCM Mary Ellen T. Gilroy for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves traveled to Southeast Asia in February and March for what was billed as an official mission to attract investment to his small Caribbean island-state. The Government of St. Vincent (GOSV) hyped the success of the PM's visits to Malaysia and Singapore, where businesses reportedly want to invest in St. Vincent and governments have offered the country various forms of assistance. While in Malaysia, the PM also named a prominent businessman St. Vincent's Honorary Consul. When asked recently about the specifics of the PM's trip, however, high-level GOSV officials were unable to offer any information and appeared to be completely unaware of the supposed success of an investment mission that included only Gonsalves and his family. The dissonance between the claims made for the PM's trip and his own Government's lack of knowledge raises questions about who paid for this junket and what it was intended to accomplish. End summary. -------------- PM Travels to Southeast Asia -------------- ¶2. (U) St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves went on a twelve-day trip to Malaysia and Singapore in February and March for what was billed by the Government of St. Vincent as a mission to attract investment to this small Caribbean island-state. According to a GOSV press release, PM Gonsalves met with the Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers of Malaysia and Singapore, as well as potential investors and financiers representing various business interests. Gonsalves also spoke before an audience at the Malaysian Institute of Management, where, according to the publicly released text of the PM's speech, he gave a general overview of St. Vincent and possible investment opportunities. Only Gonsalves's wife and 10-year-old daughter accompanied him to Southeast Asia. -------------- A "Successful" Visit -------------- ¶3. (U) PM Gonsalves's investment mission met with great success in Southeast Asia, according to releases from the GOSV and the PM's governing party. Both the Prime Ministers of Malaysia and Singapore agreed to visit St. Vincent and have their governments facilitate investment in the small Caribbean country that will serve as an Asian "beach-head" in the region. The CEOs of Malaysia's airport authority and Air Asia of Malaysia agreed to assist St. Vincent with the management of its airports and to advise the financially troubled Caribbean regional air carrier LIAT. Finally, the Malaysia-based Petra Group will market St. Vincent's international financial services in Asia, invest in tourism development in St. Vincent, and assist the Caribbean with the development of a biodiesel fuel project. -------------- The Mystery Tour -------------- ¶4. (C) Despite the apparent success of PM Gonsalves's mission to Southeast Asia, high-level members of his Government were unable to offer any information when asked about the trip recently by Poloff. Furthermore, the GOSV officials appeared to be caught totally unaware of any of the details provided in the press releases that touted the many accomplishments of their PM. A search of the websites of the Governments of Malaysia and Singapore offered a similar dearth of information, with only the Singapore MFA's website posting four lines explaining how Foreign Minister George Yeo "exchanged views" with PM Gonsalves. For any details on the trip, one had to turn to the website of the Malaysian Institute of Management (MIM),which provided the text of Gonsalves's brief March 1 speech to the organization. The website also explained that the event had been organized by Datuk Vinod Sekhar, a MIM board member and Chairman of the Petra Trust and Foundation, the charitable arm of the Petra Group. Sekhar is also the Founder, President and Chief Executive of the Petra Group, a Malaysia-based technology company. -------------- Malaysian Named St. Vincent's Honorary Consul -------------- ¶5. (C) While in Southeast Asia, PM Gonsalves named Datuk Vinod Sekhar as St. Vincent's Honorary Consul for both Malaysia and Singapore, according to the GOSV press release. The GOSV failed, however, to explain whether Sekhar would find time from his busy corporate and philanthropic schedule to provide consular services to Vincentians traveling in Southeast Asia. If PM Gonsalves follows tradition, Sekhar's Honorary Consul status came with the issuance of an actual St. Vincent diplomatic passport. The provision of diplomatic passports to non-citizens is a common practice of Caribbean leaders who, critics complain, grant both honorary and even formal diplomatic status to individuals as a means to repay wealthy benefactors (refs A and B). -------------- Investment Mission or Junket? -------------- ¶6. (C) Comment: PM Gonsalves's conferring Honorary Consul status on Sekhar suggests that either this prominent Malaysian businessman, his company, or its foundation paid for the PM and his family to take their Southeast Asian junket. This is not the first, nor will it be the last, such trip for Gonsalves, who has an extraordinary travel schedule for the leader of a small, cash-strapped Caribbean country. The GOSV certainly cannot afford to foot the PM's bills, which are probably being paid by Sekhar and others like him. The question is what do they get for this? Major foreign investment in St. Vincent is limited mainly to the tourism sector, which is the nation's only growth industry. It remains to be seen how the Petra Group or the Governments of Malaysia and Singapore could become involved in tiny St. Vincent. Post will report further on any emerging Vincentian-Southeast Asian nexus. End comment. KRAMER