St Kitts and Nevis has partnered with Japan for a new renewable energy initiative.

Officials from Japan International Cooperation Agency signed an agreement this week with St Kitts and Nevis’ Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Posts, Urban Development and Transport to begin technical cooperation alongside the twin-island federation.

Minister Ian Liburd also noted that the high price of fossil fuels has impacted the country’s economic development by increasing the cost of living for its citizens.

According to the minister, JICA conducted a “Data Collection Survey on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency” for twelve CARICOM countries from August 2014 to February 2015, in order to ascertain the needs of their energy sector.

The results of the survey prompted St Kitts and Nevis to seek a technical cooperation project between JICA and CARICOM to promote energy efficiency using Japan’s technologies and expertise.

“We are aware, we recognize that your country is facing challenges of energy supply because you are very much dependent on the imported fossil fuel and fluctuating price of the crude oil market,” said Senior Advisor for JICA Tadayuki Ogawa. “We hope that we will be able to assist the country through this technical cooperation through introducing renewable energies and also promoting energy efficiencies.”

“We wish that we will be able to transfer some of these technologies to your country so that St Kitts and Nevis will be able to utilize these technologies as much as possible to achieve its goal in energy supply,” he said.

The project between the Ministry and JICA will run from three years,  from July 2016 to June 2019.