Rishard Khan

A joint task force will be cre­at­ed to strength­en ties be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Japan as both coun­tries ap­proach the 60th an­niver­sary of their diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions.

The an­nounce­ment came via a Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs re­lease on Mon­day short­ly af­ter Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, Dr Amery Browne, held dis­cus­sions with his Japan­ese coun­ter­part, Yoshi­masa Hayashi, who is the first of his port­fo­lio to vis­it T&T.

“Min­is­ter Hayashi and Min­is­ter Browne agreed to fur­ther ex­pand and strength­en the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship on the oc­ca­sion of the 60th an­niver­sary of the es­tab­lish­ment of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions in 2024, through a Joint Task Force es­tab­lished be­tween the Em­bassy of Japan in Port-of-Spain and the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the state­ment said.

“The Joint Task Force will en­gage in ex­ten­sive dis­cus­sions to ex­pand and deep­en the ex­changes and bonds of friend­ship be­tween the two coun­tries in a wide range of ar­eas, in­clud­ing ed­u­ca­tion, cul­ture, aca­d­e­m­ic ex­change, eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion, tourism pro­mo­tion and sports ex­change, as well as to ex­plore con­crete mea­sures to achieve the goal of strength­en­ing re­la­tions,” it added.

Shar­ing brief com­ments on Hayashi’s vis­it fol­low­ing a flag-rais­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs’ St Claire of­fice be­fore dis­cus­sions be­gan on Mon­day, Browne said he was “deeply ho­n­oured” by the min­is­ter’s vis­it to T&T.

Asked by re­porters if he be­lieved Hayashi’s vis­it would en­cour­age sim­i­lar ac­tion from rep­re­sen­ta­tives of oth­er coun­tries, Browne said: “We would like to see more high-lev­el vis­its in both di­rec­tions.”

“This is a very high-lev­el vis­it and we are very pleased,” he said.

Present at the flag-rais­ing cer­e­mo­ny were Hayashi, Japan Am­bas­sador to T&T Yu­ta­ka Mat­sub­ara and their re­spec­tive diplo­mat­ic con­tin­gent.

Be­fore the cer­e­mo­ny, Hayashi al­so met with Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI), Stu­art Young at its head of­fice at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Com­plex.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the MEEI, dis­cus­sions sur­round­ed the re­la­tion­ship be­tween both coun­tries re­gard­ing fur­ther in­vest­ments in T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor.

“Min­is­ter Young wel­comed the con­tin­u­ous trade re­la­tions with Japan and ex­pressed the Gov­ern­ment’s will­ing­ness to have dis­cus­sions with Japan in­clu­sive of oth­er sec­tors out­side of en­er­gy such as trade, ed­u­ca­tion and nat­ur­al dis­as­ter man­age­ment,” it said.

“Both Min­is­ter Young and Min­is­ter Hayashi agreed on the im­por­tance of en­cour­ag­ing young per­sons in the area of in­no­va­tion and new tech­nolo­gies that are key at this time.”