French am­bas­sador to T&T, Di­di­er Chabert, is hope­ful that a so­lu­tion to the for­eign ex­change cri­sis would be found in the in­ter­est of the coun­try’s econ­o­my.

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, Chabert said for­eign ex­change is the main dif­fi­cul­ty when it comes to im­prov­ing the busi­ness and in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment, es­pe­cial­ly for small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs).

He said one of the el­e­ments in re­solv­ing the forex cri­sis is the abil­i­ty of the Trinida­di­an econ­o­my to ex­port more to coun­tries with hard cur­ren­cy, name­ly the Unit­ed States, Cana­da, and the Eu­ro­pean Union. This con­cerns in par­tic­u­lar in­dus­tri­al prod­ucts re­lat­ed to the trans­for­ma­tion of gas, for ex­am­ple, am­mo­nia and LNG.

Chabert said it is ob­vi­ous that the in­vest­ments made by Peren­co to de­vel­op na­tion­al gas pro­duc­tion and the Hy­drogène de France project are both cru­cial to ease the forex con­straint by al­low­ing the coun­try to re­ceive more US dol­lars in re­turn for its ex­ports.

“We are proud to note that the eco­nom­ic com­mit­ment of France in T&T fo­cus­es on sec­tors of strate­gic im­por­tance for the long-term de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try and its eco­log­i­cal tran­si­tion. It is a mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial part­ner­ship.”

On the top­ic of im­prov­ing the busi­ness and in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment in T&T, Chabert said the coun­try’s econ­o­my suf­fers from the rigid­i­ty of the labour mar­ket, par­tic­u­lar­ly in terms of res­i­dence per­mits for for­eign­ers com­ing to work in T&T.

“For­eign in­vest­ments cre­ate qual­i­fied jobs for Trinida­di­ans, but for­eign com­pa­nies al­so need, at least ini­tial­ly, ex­pa­tri­ate ex­ec­u­tives. We have the case of a French high-tech com­pa­ny, present for years in T&T, which had to leave the coun­try be­cause the re­new­al of its di­rec­tor-gen­er­al’s res­i­dence card was re­fused,” he dis­closed.

Fur­ther­more, the am­bas­sador in­di­cat­ed that the com­mit­ments made in 2008 un­der the Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment (EPA) be­tween Cari­com and the Eu­ro­pean Union have made it pos­si­ble to open the Eu­ro­pean mar­ket to Trinida­di­an prod­ucts with­out any re­stric­tion.  

The on­ly eco­nom­ic zone with­out cus­toms du­ties for T&T, he said, is the Eu­ro­pean Union, adding that no oth­er con­ti­nent al­lows such ease and such an open spir­it for the Caribbean coun­tries.

But, in the oth­er di­rec­tion, Chabert out­lined the planned open­ing of the T&T mar­ket to Eu­ro­pean prod­ucts, en­vis­aged by the EPA, did not take place.  

“For ex­am­ple, French agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts are oblig­ed to tran­sit through Mi­a­mi to ob­tain US health li­cences, which is para­dox­i­cal since these are less de­mand­ing than the Eu­ro­pean cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in terms of health pro­tec­tion.

“Al­so, it is not nor­mal for a cheese from France to be taxed at 15 per cent in Trinidad and To­ba­go, while the same type of cheese from New Zealand is taxed at on­ly five per cent and a Trinida­di­an prod­uct is not taxed up­on its ar­rival in France,” the am­bas­sador stressed.

He point­ed out that the first los­er in this sit­u­a­tion is the Trinida­di­an con­sumer since the ef­fect is to in­crease costs (trans­port, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion) and re­duce com­pe­ti­tion, which ex­plains the high costs of im­port­ed food prod­ucts on the lo­cal mar­ket.

On the crime front, Chabert said it is a wor­ry­ing prob­lem that af­fects all Trinida­di­ans, and it is al­so an ob­sta­cle to eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and for­eign in­vest­ment.  

“We must not turn a blind eye, as many com­pa­nies are hes­i­tant to in­vest in coun­tries where the safe­ty of their em­ploy­ees does not seem guar­an­teed and where they may fear be­ing sub­ject­ed to vi­o­lence,” he men­tioned.

He stressed that the coun­try may have great po­ten­tial in de­vel­op­ing pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships, which re­quires the adop­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion of ap­pro­pri­ate leg­is­la­tion.

Con­nec­tiv­i­ty  

Caribbean Air­lines has re­cent­ly re-opened the air route be­tween T&T and the French West In­dies and the am­bas­sador said the re-es­tab­lish­ment of air routes be­tween this coun­try, Mar­tinique and Guade­loupe is of cru­cial im­por­tance to re­con­nect Caribbean is­lands that have a com­mon his­to­ry and cul­ture.  

“It was nec­es­sary to re­store this con­nec­tiv­i­ty be­tween peo­ples who have as much in com­mon and as much to share. I would like to thank once again Caribbean Air­lines for tak­ing this ini­tia­tive. It is a de­ci­sion that al­so of­fers ex­tra­or­di­nary eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties for each of the par­ties. Thus, dur­ing my last trip to Guade­loupe, I was hap­py to be able to taste on the ter­race of the lo­cal cafes the Carib beer, com­ing from Trinidad.”

“I would be very glad if I could help to or­gan­ise a Trinida­di­an trade mis­sion to vis­it the French West In­dies to es­tab­lish con­tacts with lo­cal com­pa­nies. For com­par­i­son, the over­all GDP of the five French ter­ri­to­ries in the Amer­i­c­as is at the lev­el of the GDP of Trinidad and To­ba­go. These are mar­kets gov­erned by Eu­ro­pean rules, there­fore open to Trinida­di­an prod­ucts with­out na­tion­al tax­es,” Chabert high­light­ed.

As his mis­sion comes to an end in T&T in the next few months, the am­bas­sador said the re­sound­ing suc­cess of en­er­gy com­pa­ny Peren­co is the sin­gle achieve­ment that is clos­est to his heart, of all the French in­vest­ment projects that have been un­der­tak­en since his ar­rival in 2022. The diplo­mat laud­ed the sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments Peren­co has made to de­vel­op its nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion. On Fri­day, Peren­co an­nounced that it was ac­quir­ing Wood­side En­er­gy’s Greater An­gos­tu­ra oil and gas pro­duc­ing as­sets, which was hint­ed at by te French am­bas­sador in the in­ter­view.

Peren­co Chabert said in the com­ing days for­malise the takeover of Wood­side’s as­sets and thus be­come the third gas and oil op­er­a­tor in the coun­try.

Sec­ond­ly, he out­lined the ‘Hy­drogène de France’ project which is a ma­jor project for the eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, sup­port­ed by the French gov­ern­ment and by the Eu­ro­pean Union.  

“First of all, by the amount of the planned in­vest­ment since, with near­ly US$300 mil­lion, it is the main for­eign in­vest­ment in the coun­try over the last five years.  The tech­ni­cal and fi­nan­cial part of this project has been com­plet­ed with all the au­thor­i­ties con­cerned, and the project now re­quires fi­nal po­lit­i­cal agree­ment from the Trinida­di­an gov­ern­ment.”

“It is an in­vest­ment that will per­mit the sup­ply of green en­er­gy to the in­dus­tri­al fa­cil­i­ties of Point Lisas, and in par­tic­u­lar for the pro­duc­tion of am­mo­nia. It is al­so a project that could high­light the ef­fort of the Trinida­di­an au­thor­i­ties to com­bat cli­mate change. The pro­duc­tion of green hy­dro­gen will al­so fa­cil­i­tate the ex­port of am­mo­nia to the Eu­ro­pean Union, which is the sec­ond largest client of the Trinida­di­an econ­o­my af­ter the Unit­ed States,” the am­bas­sador stat­ed.

Asked what has been his biggest sur­prise or dis­cov­ery dur­ing his time as Am­bas­sador of France to this coun­try, he said  

“My most beau­ti­ful dis­cov­ery was the qual­i­ty and di­ver­si­ty of hu­man re­la­tion­ships. There is a Trinida­di­an cul­ture, var­ied ac­cord­ing to the dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties, but a com­mon way of life that is unique. The plea­sure of be­ing with friends while lis­ten­ing to mu­sic or chat­ting, sim­ple but de­li­cious gas­tron­o­my, whether it is dou­bles, ro­tis or the bake and shark.”

“By leav­ing I would miss the wild beau­ty of na­ture, the cap­ti­vat­ing and en­chant­i­ng rhythm of Caribbean mu­sic, but above all that I would re­gret most when leav­ing, it is the Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans them­selves,” Chabert con­clud­ed.