Rapheal John-Lall

The cur­rent eco­nom­ic down�turn is not the first that T&T has been through and the coun­try has the ca­pac­i­ty to come out of this eco­nom­ic de­pres­sion, said Trade Min­is­ter Paula Go�pee-Scoon.

"We are all cog­nisant of the chal�lenges that the coun­try is cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing due to the fall in com­mod­i­ty prices and oil and gas pro�duc­tion lev­els. How­ev­er, this is not the first time that we as a coun­try have faced this. How­ev­er, it is all cy�cli­cal. Per­haps prices may nev­er ever re­turn to their pre­vi­ous lev­els. The true met­tle of a peo­ple is de­ter­mined by the strate­gies we choose to over�come these chal­lenges," she said.

Gopee-Scoon spoke on Tues�day at a sem­i­nar on the Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment (EPA) at the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, West­moor­ings. In 2008 Car­i­fo­rum, which com­pris­es the 15 Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty states, along with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, signed an EPA with the Eu­ro­pean Union, pro­mot­ing en­hanced lev­els of trade in goods and ser­vices be­tween the two groups of coun­tries.

She said the EPA with its em­bed�ded com­mit­ments to trade in ser­vic�es will serve as one of the pri­ma­ry ve­hi­cles to fa­cil­i­tate T&T's di­ver­si�fi­ca­tion thrust.

"The agree­ment speaks to the pro­mo­tion of trade in ser­vices, in sec­tors per­tain­ing to mar­itime ser�vices, cre­ative in­dus­tries, tourism and fi­nan­cial ser­vices, which are a few of the fo­cal ar­eas that the Gov�ern­ment has ear­marked for fur­ther de­vel­op­ment and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion."

She said T&T has pro­vi­sion­al­ly ap­plied the CAR­I­FO­RUM-EU Eco�nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment since De­cem­ber 29, 2008.

"One of the main ob­jec­tives of the Agree­ment is to en­cour­age ex­ports of non-en­er­gy goods to the EU mar�ket. The agree­ment al­lows do­mes­tic man­u­fac­tur­ers to im­port raw ma�teri­als and in­ter­me­di­ate prod­ucts at re­duced du­ties, which were pre�vi­ous­ly du­tiable from the EU. Thus man­u­fac­tur­ers have the as­sur­ance that they can ob­tain their raw ma�teri­als with­out de­lay and at a com�pe­t­i­tive cost with­out the im­po­si­tion of high cus­toms du­ties," she said.

Trade ben­e­fits

She said the Min­istry of Trade is tasked with co-or­di­nat­ing the im�ple­men­ta­tion and en­cour­ag­ing the util­i­sa­tion of the EPA.

One such ac­tiv­i­ty was the part�ner­ing with the Car­i­fo­rum Se­cre�tari­at in 2016 to pro­vide train­ing for do­mes­tic stake­hold­ers in spe�cif­ic ar­eas of the EPA such as pub�lic pro­cure­ment, com­pe­ti­tion, and cus­toms and trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion. The event at­tract­ed over 70 pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers and pub­lic of­fi­cials.

She al­so said that the Min­istry of Trade through its state agency ex�porTT ex­e­cut­ed the Fit For Eu­rope project in De­cem­ber 2016, which was fund­ed through the 10th Eu�ro­pean De­vel­op­ment Fund (EDF).

The project pre­pared 26 com­pa�nies in sec­tors such as food and bev�er­ages, fash­ion and en­ter­tain­ment and ICT to em­bark on trade mis­sions to the UK, France and the Nether�lands and lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives were able to en­gage in one-on-one meet�in­gs with po­ten­tial buy­ers, bro­ker deals and learn first hand about the pro­ce­dures and process­es in do­ing busi­ness in the EU.

T&T Cham­ber

Gabriel Faria, CEO of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com�mer­ce, who al­so spoke at the fo­rum, said it is crit­i­cal that lo­cal busi­ness­es take ad­van­tage of busi­ness op­por�tu­ni­ties that present them­selves as a re­sult of the EPA.

He al­so said there is a large Car�ibbean di­as­po­ra in the EU that lo­cal busi­ness­es can sup­ply and called on all busi­ness­es to take all the op­por�tu­ni­ties the EPA presents.