Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

The Trinidad and To­ba­go–In­dia Busi­ness Fed­er­a­tion (TTIBF) has called for a strate­gic deep­en­ing of this coun­try’s eco­nom­ic ties with In­dia, urg­ing lo­cal busi­ness­es to seize emerg­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties amid shifts in the glob­al econ­o­my.

Speak­ing at the fed­er­a­tion’s launch on Sun­day at the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Co-op­er­a­tion (MG­ICC) in Mount Hope, TTIBF pres­i­dent Dr Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon said Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­port­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$260 mil­lion in goods to In­dia in 2024 and im­port­ed US$109 mil­lion. Ar­joon iden­ti­fied en­er­gy, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, agri­cul­ture, and dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy as key ar­eas for col­lab­o­ra­tion.

With In­dia now the world’s third-largest en­er­gy con­sumer, he not­ed that there are op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­creased ex­ports of LNG, petro­chem­i­cals, am­mo­nia and methanol, as well as po­ten­tial up­stream in­vest­ment from ma­jor In­di­an en­er­gy firms. He al­so em­pha­sised that In­dia’s cap­i­tal and tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise could sup­port ef­forts to re-open the Point-a-Pierre re­fin­ery, once a net for­eign ex­change earn­er for the coun­try.

Ar­joon fur­ther pro­posed joint ven­tures in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pack­ag­ing with­in spe­cial eco­nom­ic zones, al­low­ing bulk drugs from In­dia to be processed lo­cal­ly for ex­port to Cari­com and Latin Amer­i­ca.

He said the TTIBF will fo­cus on fa­cil­i­tat­ing tar­get­ed trade mis­sions, pro­vid­ing mar­ket in­tel­li­gence, es­tab­lish­ing sec­toral work­ing com­mit­tees, and ad­vo­cat­ing for pol­i­cy re­forms to sim­pli­fy cross-bor­der com­merce.

“This is not char­i­ty. This is com­merce,” Ar­joon said. “Part­ner­ships do not hap­pen by ac­ci­dent. They re­quire struc­ture, trust and per­sis­tent ef­fort.”

He urged busi­ness lead­ers, in­vestors, and young pro­fes­sion­als to be­come ac­tive par­tic­i­pants in build­ing what he de­scribed as a strate­gic eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ship for the fu­ture.

“We are at an in­flec­tion point,” Ar­joon said. “In­dia chose trans­for­ma­tion. Tonight, we are choos­ing part­ner­ship.”

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the launch of the busi­ness group, Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj said fol­low­ing the re­cent vis­it by Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di, sev­er­al ar­eas had been iden­ti­fied for ex­pand­ed co­op­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and health­care, agri­cul­ture and agro-pro­cess­ing, tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty, cul­ture, and re­new­able en­er­gy.

He chal­lenged the Fed­er­a­tion to fo­cus on five key pil­lars: im­ple­ment­ing Mem­o­ran­da of Un­der­stand­ing (MoUs), un­lock­ing gate­way po­ten­tial, sup­port­ing mi­cro, small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (MSMEs), and strength­en­ing con­nec­tions with the di­as­po­ra.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is com­mit­ted to build­ing a fu­ture-ready econ­o­my. We are pur­su­ing a Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment with In­dia to re­duce tar­iff bar­ri­ers and en­cour­age joint ven­tures. We are al­so in­te­grat­ing In­dia’s Uni­fied Pay­ment In­ter­face to make cross-bor­der trans­ac­tions as seam­less as send­ing a text mes­sage,” said Ma­haraj.

He al­so high­light­ed that in Jan­u­ary, T&T cel­e­brat­ed its first ship­ment of prod­ucts from An­gos­tu­ra to In­dia in more than a decade.

“In May 2025, Carib Brew­ery en­tered the world’s largest beer mar­ket through a part­ner­ship with Globus Spir­its Ltd. Carib is now sold in cities such as Luc­know, Kan­pur and Ay­o­d­hya. These are not iso­lat­ed suc­cess­es; they sig­nal grow­ing mo­men­tum,” said Ma­haraj.