Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

Chile wants to deep­en co-op­er­a­tion with T&T in the post-pan­dem­ic world.

Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Chilean Agency for In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Co­op­er­a­tion Cristián Jara was on an of­fi­cial trip to T&T from Sep­tem­ber 30 to Oc­to­ber 2 and told the Sun­day Guardian some of these com­mon projects both coun­tries can work on in­clude post-pan­dem­ic health, re­new­able en­er­gy and greater busi­ness ties.

The vis­it was part of an of­fi­cial vis­it of 12 days through coun­tries of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty, that in­clud­ed T&T, Guyana, and Do­mini­ca.

In email re­spons­es to the Sun­day Guardian about his vis­it to T&T, Jara said like T&T, Chile has faced very dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances but they are will­ing to share their ex­pe­ri­ences with T&T.

“In 2020, like many coun­tries, Chile took in­to con­sid­er­a­tion dif­fer­ent di­men­sions re­lat­ed to the pan­dem­ic. For ex­am­ple, adapt and re­dis­trib­ute hu­man re­sources in the health sec­tor, de­liv­er new ways to sup­port vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple, and pro­vide tools to face the eco­nom­ic strug­gles,” he said.

He al­so gave de­tails about his trip to T&T.

“The agen­da in T&T was cen­tred main­ly around meet­ings with gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. I ex­pect for my next trip, I will have meet­ings with the civ­il so­ci­ety and the pri­vate sec­tor. Nonethe­less, my agen­da in T&T start­ed with a meet­ing with the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, Ms. Joanne De­o­raj, where we iden­ti­fied new ar­eas of co­op­er­a­tion in the post-pan­dem­ic sce­nario.”

He said with the sup­port of the Chilean Am­bas­sador to T&T, Juan Aníbal Bar­ría, he al­so met with T&T’s Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne and they agreed to de­vel­op a new stage in the agen­da of in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

“Fol­low­ing this, we agreed that our coun­tries need to ad­vo­cate the con­cept of ‘de­vel­op­ment in tran­si­tion,’ tak­ing in­to ac­count that both coun­tries are not el­i­gi­ble for re­ceiv­ing of­fi­cial de­vel­op­ment aid (ODA) ac­cord­ing to the stan­dards of the De­vel­op­ment As­sis­tance Com­mit­tee (CAD) of the OECD and es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the pan­dem­ic’s con­se­quences with­in our economies..”

Jara said this trip start­ed in T&T with the goal to re­in­force the co­op­er­a­tion agen­da be­tween Chile and the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean, con­sid­er­ing this area is a pri­or­i­ty in Chile’s na­tion­al agen­da of in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion for de­vel­op­ment.

“To achieve the men­tioned goal, we will in­clude and pro­mote bi­lat­er­al and mul­ti­lat­er­al ef­forts. The idea was to re­vi­talise the agen­da with more dy­namism and valu­able in­put to reach our shared ob­jec­tives out­lined un­der Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDG16+) to­wards achiev­ing the 2030 Agen­da.”

He added that while in T&T he al­so signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) with the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States (ASC).

“Al­so, I had a meet­ing with its Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, Rodol­fo Sabonge, in which we re­viewed the main sub­jects in­volved in the men­tioned MoU. The re­ferred doc­u­ment es­tab­lished the ba­sis for tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion, fi­nan­cial co­op­er­a­tion, schol­ar­ships, and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing projects in pri­or­i­ty ar­eas such as preser­va­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment, re­new­able en­er­gy, sus­tain­able tourism, dis­as­ter risk man­age­ment, and re­silience, among oth­ers.

Jara’s trip comes right af­ter T&T and Chile be­gan trade ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to a me­dia re­lease from the Min­istry of Trade in Au­gust: “T&T and Chile com­menced the First Round of Ne­go­ti­a­tions for the Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment be­tween the T&T and Chile on Tues­day 17 Au­gust 2021. The com­mence­ment of these ne­go­ti­a­tions is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in deep­en­ing bi­lat­er­al trade re­la­tions be­tween both coun­tries fol­low­ing the sign­ing of the Gen­er­al Frame­work Agree­ment in Oc­to­ber 2020.

Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon ex­pressed an­tic­i­pa­tion that the Par­tial Scope Agree­ment will pro­vide new mar­ket ac­cess op­por­tu­ni­ties for T&T’s man­u­fac­tured goods there­by im­prov­ing T&T’s econ­o­my.

Jara said that both coun­tries must con­tin­ue to build prac­ti­cal ties.

“I be­lieve that it’s the mo­ment to up­grade our co­op­er­a­tion pro­grams to the next lev­el.”

He added that in this sense, the meet­ings with the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of Plan­ning and with the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and Cari­com were ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ties to de­fine new top­ics in co­op­er­a­tion.

“We agreed to ex­plore tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion re­gard­ing re­new­able en­er­gies, in­no­va­tion and mul­ti­sec­tor co­op­er­a­tion, cli­mate change, e-gov­ern­ment, and vir­tu­al teach­ing of dif­fer­ent lev­els of Span­ish as a sec­ond lan­guage.”