NADALEEN SINGH

There is an im­bal­ance of trade, but the Gov­ern­ment is do­ing its best to deal with it, said Carl Fran­cis, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try. "In terms of over­all im­por­ta­tion, we are vic­tims of what is hap­pen­ing in the in­ter­na­tion­al econ­o­my. We im­port a lot of our prod­ucts but we are, at the same time, try­ing to en­gen­der ex­ports so that we can re­duce the im­bal­ance of trade." The con­sump­tion of lo­cal prod­ucts is need­ed to re­duce that im­bal­ance, Fran­cis said.

"We do not pro­duce a lot of goods that we con­sume and so we im­port. The idea is that there is no ag­gres­sive pol­i­cy like im­port sub­sti­tu­tion, but we are try­ing to re­duce our food im­port bill."

Speak­ing at Mon­day's me­dia launch of the Prime Min­is­ter's Ex­porter's awards, Fran­cis said the gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP) was 74.6 per cent com­pared to 58.9 per cent in 2007, and this is al­so good. "This per­for­mance is quite note­wor­thy be­cause at the end of 2008, many coun­tries in the world were al­ready ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a re­ces­sion."

Ex­ports:

De­spite the eco­nom­ic down­turn T&T has done quite well when it comes to ex­port per­for­mance, Fran­cis said.

He said for 2008, the val­ue of T&T's to­tal ex­ports was $113.5 bil­lion, with the en­er­gy sec­tor ac­count­ing for most of that fig­ure.

"Of this amount, $102.4 bil­lion was from the en­er­gy sec­tor and $11.1 bil­lion came from the non-en­er­gy sec­tor."

He said the top five non-en­er­gy ex­port­ed prod­ucts were:

�2 Iron and steel–$4.1 bil­lion

�2�Met­al ore and scrap–$3.2 bil­lion

�2 Bev­er­ages–$ 638.6 mil­lion

�2�Pa­per man­u­fac­tures –$427.9 mil­lion

�2 Ce­re­al and ce­re­al prepa­ra­tions–$415 mil­lion

Fran­cis said in 2008, the Unit­ed States was the largest ex­port des­ti­na­tion with a to­tal of $49.4 bil­lion in ex­ports, and Ja­maica the sec­ond with $7.8 bil­lion in ex­ports, Spain, the third ex­port des­ti­na­tion with $7.3 bil­lion, Mex­i­co with $3.6 bil­lion, and Nether­lands $3.5 bil­lion.

Cari­com/Cana­da trade agree­ment:

Fran­cis al­so said ne­go­ti­a­tions for a new trade and de­vel­op­ment agree­ment be­tween Cari­com and Cana­da are set to be­gin in Sep­tem­ber and, once fi­nalised, will re­place the ex­ist­ing Carib­Can agree­ment, which is ex­pect­ed to ex­pire in 2011. "We are hop­ing we can start the ne­go­ti­a­tions in Sep­tem­ber of this year. There was an ini­tial in­ter­face that was sup­posed to have tak­en place in Bar­ba­dos. The Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try will be speak­ing with his Cab­i­net coun­ter­part in the next week or so to try to fi­nalise a date for the de­lib­er­a­tions in Sep­tem­ber." He said there are many items on the agen­da deal­ing with in­vest­ment and ser­vices and, for the first time, labour is­sues will be dis­cussed. "We are go­ing to be hav­ing a labour and en­vi­ron­ment as­pect of the ne­go­ti­a­tions. There would be a sub-ne­go­ti­a­tion on labour and en­vi­ron­ment in this par­tic­u­lar agree­ment.

"This presents a new op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to treat with these sub­jects. We have no choice be­cause these are is­sues that are top­i­cal and the time has come for us to treat with them in ne­go­ti­a­tions. Fran­cis said the en­vi­ron­ment and labour as­pect of the ne­go­ti­a­tions in­volve talks about com­pe­ti­tion be­tween the two coun­tries in var­i­ous sec­tors and will al­so ad­dress labour is­sues.

"When two coun­tries get in­to a dis­cus­sion, they want to en­sure there is open com­pe­ti­tion, that coun­tries are not em­ploy­ing in­di­vid­u­als be­low the mar­ket rate or there are not con­di­tions in the mar­ket­place that would make for ex­ploita­tion of work­ers.

"Those are the kind of things that the Cana­di­ans have ne­go­ti­at­ed with oth­er coun­tries of the world and they are go­ing to do the same thing with us."

TTMA/Cari­com/Cana­da agree­ment:

Greig Laugh­lin, pres­i­dent, T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), said he looks for­ward to all the ne­go­ti­a­tions that will be tak­ing place with the Cari­com/Cana­da agree­ment. Laugh­lin said he is pleased about the in­clu­sion of labour and en­vi­ron­ment on the agen­da. "The labour as­pect of the ne­go­ti­a­tion is long over­due. I hope it comes with a lot of in­ter­est on how to deal with labour, how to move for­ward with labour. I hope we can learn some­thing from these talks es­pe­cial­ly about labour. At the end of the day, our em­ploy­ees are our most im­por­tant as­sets," Laugh­lin said.

Com­ment­ing on the en­vi­ron­ment as­pect of the ne­go­ti­a­tions, Laugh­lin said he is hope­ful that so­lu­tions would be dis­cussed on ways in which garbage can be dis­posed of. "I hope that they will find ways and means to part­ner to clean up and re­cy­cle much of the waste here be­cause we have an in­ex­pen­sive en­er­gy. We can of­fer to as­sist even our Cari­com neigh­bours with clean­ing up some of their waste," he said.