Obama promises to help the region with energy

United States President Barack Obama has vowed that his country will assist the Caribbean region with its energy security as a means of generating economic growth.

"Often times people in the Caribbean, despite having less resources, are paying significantly more for energy and if we can lower those costs to the development of clean energy and increase energy efficiency we could unleash, I think,  a whole host of additional investment and growth," Obama said following talks with Jamaica's Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Andrew, this morning.

According to Obama, the meeting with Simpson Miller was successful.

"We had lots to talk about," he said. 

These included Jamaica’s economic reform programme which is being administered under the watchful gaze of the International Monetary Fund.

Meanwhile,  Obama said that the hospitality extended to his team has been wonderful and his wife, Michelle,  wishes she was on the trip although.

"We will have to return with the girls sometime in the future," said Obama in reference to their daughters, Malia and Sasha.

Earlier, Simpson Miller told Obama that he is well loved by Jamaicans and that many, who thought that he was travelling by road, lined the streets from the Norman Manley International Airport to see him last night.

Obama’s meeting with Simpson Miller is to be followed by a meeting with heads of Government in CARICOM. 

He has declared that the aim of the US is to see how it can be a more constructive partner for the region.