CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank will for the third successive year host a major regional conference focusing on Caribbean infrastructural development through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs).

This conference is fast positioning the bank as the regional leader in facilitating and financing PPPs.

In its first two years, the conference attracted attendance at the highest political level as well as top international and regional executives and industry experts in the area of infrastructural development and PPPs.

The theme of this year’s conference is: Caribbean Infrastructure: Unlocking Economic Potential. It will be held this year on the 18th – 19th June, at the Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

International, regional and local executives will be welcomed by Managing Director of CIBC FirstCaribbean’ s Jamaica business, Nigel Holness while the bank’s Chief Executive Officer Rik Parkhill will give opening remarks on day one of the conference.

The two-day event will focus on the key principles of the successful development of airport, tourism, water utilities, energy and social infrastructure. Specifically, select regional case studies will be used to demonstrate how to ensure regional projects are suitably credit-enhanced to attract broader investor participation and unlock the full economic potential of infrastructural development in the Caribbean.

The conference will also feature international and regional investors, major infrastructure operators, rating agency infrastructure/project finance specialists and infrastructure project advisors from the private and public sector and multilateral organisations.

Some of the main items on the agenda are: types of regional projects that continue to attract international investment; techniques to increase the credit rating of projects in the region; holistic approaches to airport and cruise port redevelopment; the roll-out of key tourism development projects via public private partnerships; harnessing efficiencies to upgrade water utility infrastructure and the impact of renewable energy on the Caribbean energy mix.

Chief Executive Officer, Rik Parkhill, said he was looking forward to this year’s event adding that he was proud of how quickly the conference has grown into a major forum for international, multilateral and regional investors, governments and the private sector to engage with a view to building partnerships aimed at driving infrastructural development in the region.

About CIBC FirstCaribbean

CIBC FirstCaribbean is the largest, regionally-listed bank in the English and Dutch speaking Caribbean serving over 500,000 accounts in 17 markets, through 2,900 staff, across 100 branches and offices.

The bank offers a full range of market-leading financial services in: Corporate and Investment Banking, Treasury Sales and Trading, Retail Banking, Wealth Management, Small Business and Credit Cards.

CIBC FirstCaribbean is a member of the CIBC Group. CIBC (TSX, NYSE: CM) is a leading North American financial institution serving clients in Canada and around the world. Through three distinct business lines, Retail and Business Banking, Wealth Management and Wholesale Banking, CIBC provides a full range of products and services to almost 11 million individual, small business and commercial banking clients and meets the financial needs of corporate and institutional clients. CIBC is rated A+/Stable/A-1 by Standard & Poor's.

For more information about CIBC FirstCaribbean, visit www.cibcfcib.com