Leg­is­la­tors from around the re­gion are meet­ing in Port of Spain to dis­cuss their ex­pe­ri­ences in eco­nom­ic and trade poli­cies in re­la­tion to World Trade Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WTO) rules. The Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­men­tary As­so­ci­a­tion (CPA) is part­ner­ing with the WTO and the T&T branch of the CPA for three three-day work­shop cur­rent­ly tak­ing place at the Hy­att Re­gency.

In her wel­come re­marks. House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George said this was the sec­ond oc­ca­sion that the Par­lia­ment of T&T had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to host such a work­shop. The first oc­ca­sion was in 2003.

An­nisette-George praised the WTO's cur­rent dri­ve which em­pha­sized a wider role which par­lia­men­tar­i­ans play in bring­ing in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and peo­ple clos­er to­geth­er, es­pe­cial­ly as it per­tains to the trad­ing sys­tem.

Speak­er of the Montser­rat Leg­isla­tive As­sem­bly and vice chair­per­son Shirley Os­borne stressed the vi­tal im­por­tance of Par­lia­ments around the re­gion work­ing col­lec­tive­ly to­wards a broad­er and deep­er un­der­stand­ing of the WTO. This sen­ti­ment was echoed by the Head of Ex­ter­nal Re­la­tions at the WTO, Bernard Kuiten, who placed the cen­tral im­por­tance of trade at the heart of the dis­cus­sions and un­der­lined the need for im­mense in­ter­ac­tive and in-depth par­tic­i­pa­tion and di­a­logue among the del­e­gates.

In the keynote ad­dress, Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon reaf­firmed T&T's com­mit­ment to the mul­ti­lat­er­al sys­tem and to the WTO. She said this coun­try has been a strong pro­po­nent of mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and the work of the World Trade Sec­re­tari­at since its es­tab­lish­ment in 1995.

Gopee-Scoon said Gov­ern­ment is look­ing to ex­pand and en­hance mar­ket ac­cess in­to Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Africa and Asia as part of ef­forts to di­ver­si­fy T&T's econ­o­my away from de­pen­dence on oil and gas.

She said Gov­ern­ment plans to pur­sue sev­er­al di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and com­pet­i­tive­ness ini­tia­tives tar­get­ed at the ser­vices and non-en­er­gy sec­tors.

"The area of man­u­fac­tur­ing re­mains a pri­or­i­ty. We are com­mit­ted to sup­port an im­proved busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment as well as firms abil­i­ties to sus­tain­ably pro­duce goods and ser­vices at a com­pet­i­tive price and qual­i­ty," she said.

The min­is­ter said sec­tors which are show­ing growth po­ten­tial have been iden­ti­fied for de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing agri­cul­ture, mar­itime, cre­ative, tourism and fi­nance.

"It's gov­ern­ment in­ten­tion to ex­pand and en­hance mar­ket ac­cess for these ar­eas: tra­di­tion­al and non-tra­di­tion­al ex­port mar­kets in north, south and cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Eu­rope, Asia and Africa."

Gopee-Scoon said T&T is al­so col­lab­o­rat­ing with oth­er Cari­com coun­tries on a co-or­di­nat­ed ap­proach to im­ple­ment­ing the agree­ment with as­sis­tance from the World Bank Group.