Ghana has ex­tend­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go to un­der­take a trade mis­sion to the West African state.

In a news re­lease, the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism said the in­vi­ta­tion was ex­tend­ed by the Ghanan­ian Min­is­ter in Charge of Spe­cial Ini­tia­tives in the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent of Ghana, Em­manuel Kwad­wo Agyekum, dur­ing a cour­tesy call on Sen­a­tor Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj, Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, at the min­istry’s head­quar­ters in Nicholas Tow­ers.

The min­istry said the mis­sion could be a piv­otal en­gage­ment that could serve to fur­ther strength­en the trade and in­vest­ment re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two na­tions. Min­is­ter Ma­haraj was in­vit­ed to lead the trade mis­sion.

The meet­ing oc­curred af­ter Ma­haraj de­liv­ered open­ing re­marks at the 23rd An­nu­al Trans-At­lantic Trade and In­vest­ment Sym­po­sium at the Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port of Spain on Thurs­day.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, dis­cus­sions fo­cussed on en­hanc­ing bi­lat­er­al trade and in­vest­ment re­la­tions, while al­so ex­plor­ing new av­enues for co­op­er­a­tion and mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial part­ner­ships.

Min­is­ter Ma­haraj in­di­cat­ed a de­sire to strength­en the trade net­work across the glob­al south and ce­ment Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion at the epi­cen­ter. In this con­text, he ex­pressed in­ter­est in com­menc­ing for­mal dis­cus­sions to­wards the es­tab­lish­ment of a pref­er­en­tial trade agree­ment be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Eco­nom­ic Com­mu­ni­ty of West African States (ECOW­AS).

He de­scribed West Africa as a nat­ur­al and strate­gic part­ner, he not­ed that the re­gion’s grow­ing con­sumer base, dy­nam­ic dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and youth­ful en­tre­pre­neur­ial en­er­gy cre­ate fer­tile ground for mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial trade and in­vest­ment.

The Min­is­ter said this presents a once-in-a gen­er­a­tion op­por­tu­ni­ty for Caribbean ex­porters and in­vestors.

“For Trinidad and To­ba­go, the im­pli­ca­tions are clear: the African con­ti­nent is ris­ing, and we must en­gage with it de­lib­er­ate­ly and strate­gi­cal­ly,” said Ma­haraj.

The min­istry not­ed ECOW­AS, com­pris­es 15 coun­tries and has a com­bined pop­u­la­tion of over 400 mil­lion peo­ple which al­ready has laid a sol­id foun­da­tion for com­mer­cial col­lab­o­ra­tion.

The re­lease stat­ed fur­ther, “Serv­ing as fur­ther re­in­force­ment is the ex­tend­ed African Con­ti­nen­tal Free Trade Area, a trans­for­ma­tive plat­form con­nect­ing 1.3 bil­lion peo­ple and a mar­ket worth over US$3.4 tril­lion.”

Min­is­ter Ma­haraj said qual­i­ty man­u­fac­tured prod­ucts here can be ex­port­ed to Ghana and the wider African con­ti­nent.

The min­istry not­ed in 2024, T&T main­tained a net pos­i­tive trade bal­ance with Ghana. In­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties be­tween both coun­tries have al­so been iden­ti­fied in light and heavy man­u­fac­tur­ing, agro-pro­cess­ing, eco-in­dus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing, busi­ness process out­sourc­ing and off­shore trans­ship­ment port.

For­mer trade and in­dus­try min­is­ter, Paula Gopee-Scoon, led a pri­vate sec­tor del­e­ga­tion on a six-day trade mis­sion to Ghana in March 2024. The mis­sion was or­gan­ised by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) and Ex­porTT.