Japan­ese Am­bas­sador to T&T Aki­ma Umeza­wa says while T&T and Japan have long en­joyed ben­e­fi­cial trade re­la­tions, re­cent geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions can open more op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal ex­ports.

In a wide-rang­ing ex­clu­sive in­ter­view, the am­bas­sador de­tailed how re­cent volatil­i­ty in the Mid­dle East—specif­i­cal­ly the im­pact of mis­sile at­tacks on ma­jor en­er­gy hubs like Qatar—has fun­da­men­tal­ly shift­ed the com­pet­i­tive­ness of Trinida­di­an ex­ports.

With Qatar rep­re­sent­ing rough­ly 20 per cent of the world’s nat­ur­al gas sup­ply, the am­bas­sador ex­plained that T&T’s LNG and am­mo­nia have tran­si­tioned from stan­dard com­modi­ties to es­sen­tial game chang­ers.

“Qatar is a 20 per cent cov­er­age of the world, the nat­ur­al gas. And be­fore, ac­tu­al­ly Japan im­port­ed the am­mo­nia from T&T. So now, your usu­al or gen­er­al prod­ucts of LNG or am­mo­nia have a com­pet­i­tive pow­er enough to suc­ceed in the Japan­ese mar­ket....And this sit­u­a­tion might be con­tin­ued in the next few months, be­cause the Mid­dle East sit­u­a­tion is still go­ing on,” said Umeza­wa, who has been in this coun­try for just over a year.

De­spite the uptick in en­er­gy trade, there are some reg­u­la­to­ry is­sues cur­rent­ly pre­vent­ing fur­ther as­sis­tance in tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion and grant as­sis­tance.

The am­bas­sador ex­plained that while Japan is ea­ger to as­sist T&T in mod­ernising its ICT in­fra­struc­ture, Elec­tric Ve­hi­cle (EV) tech­nol­o­gy and ro­bot­ics, it is dif­fi­cult to do so un­der cur­rent do­mes­tic reg­u­la­tions.

“Japan of­fers a huge list of train­ing cours­es. And last year, the gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed, 2026 to 2028, the Gov­ern­ment wants to pick up the ICT train­ing course for the gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. So def­i­nite­ly, next year, we have a good co­op­er­a­tion. But I want to say that your ques­tion used the word tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion. Cur­rent­ly, it is so dif­fi­cult for Japan­ese gov­ern­ment. For ex­am­ple, we send the ex­perts to your vo­ca­tion­al train­ing cen­tre or your com­pa­nies.

“Be­cause cur­rent­ly, your gov­ern­ment has not of­fered any priv­i­lege to Japan­ese ex­perts, like a tax ex­emp­tion or eas­ing the reg­u­la­tions. So cur­rent­ly, Japan can­not send any ex­perts to do that. So I al­ways ask the Gov­ern­ment to ease such kind of reg­u­la­tion,” Umeza­wa ex­plained.

The sec­ond ma­jor hur­dle in­volves a unique bank­ing re­stric­tion.

Un­der cur­rent T&T reg­u­la­tions, the State re­port­ed­ly can­not open bank ac­counts in coun­tries where it does not main­tain a res­i­dent em­bassy.

“In the case of the Trinidad and To­ba­go, very unique, the Trinidad and To­ba­go gov­ern­ment can­not open a bank ac­count in a coun­try where the em­bassy has not been es­tab­lished. Cur­rent­ly, the Trinidad and To­ba­go em­bassy in In­dia, in New Del­hi, cov­ers Japan. So now un­der the Trinidad and To­ba­go reg­u­la­tions, the Gov­ern­ment can­not open a bank ac­count in or on the land of Japan. So that sit­u­a­tion blocks our grant as­sis­tance co­op­er­a­tion. So my gov­ern­ment al­ways asks or re­quests the gov­ern­ment to re­new such kind of reg­u­la­tion. Oth­er­wise, we can­not of­fer any grant as­sis­tance, nor any tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion,” Umeza­wa stat­ed.

The am­bas­sador urged a change of course to al­low these re­sources to reach the T&T econ­o­my.

“Pre­vi­ous­ly, in 1996 to 2001, one of the ex­cep­tions of the as­sis­tance, we had made as­sis­tance to a fish­eries train­ing course. And in those five years, Japan had sent ex­perts and al­so pro­vid­ed the fish­ing fa­cil­i­ty, fish­ing gear. So on­ly in that five years, we could do the tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion. And af­ter that, we can­not do it,” he added.

Brand­ing strat­e­gy: From Scor­pi­on pep­pers to Valen­tine’s choco­late

In the agri­cul­tur­al and niche man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tors, the am­bas­sador pro­vid­ed a can­did as­sess­ment of the “brand­ing gap” fac­ing Trinida­di­an goods. While the qual­i­ty of lo­cal co­coa is world-class, he ex­plained that T&T co­coa pow­der is of­ten un­suit­ed for the Japan­ese mar­ket due to tra­di­tion­al pro­cess­ing meth­ods that in­clude the “husk” (out­er shell) in the grind­ing process.

This re­sults in a grit­ty tex­ture and an earthy aro­ma that con­trasts with the fine, smooth stan­dards ex­pect­ed by Japan­ese con­sumers and high-end brands like Van Houten.

To cap­ture a share of Japan’s lu­cra­tive choco­late mar­ket, the am­bas­sador sug­gest­ed a shift to­ward pro­duc­ing fin­er, husk-free pow­ders and adopt­ing a more in­no­v­a­tive brand­ing strat­e­gy.

He specif­i­cal­ly pro­posed lever­ag­ing Japan’s unique “Valen­tine’s and White Day” tra­di­tions to mar­ket Caribbean prod­ucts.

In Japan, women tra­di­tion­al­ly present choco­late to men on Feb­ru­ary 14, while men re­turn the ges­ture with white choco­late on March 14.

The am­bas­sador sug­gest­ed that a “Caribbean Pas­sion” themed choco­late line could cap­i­talise on these cul­tur­al events.

A sim­i­lar strat­e­gy was pro­posed for the Moru­ga Scor­pi­on and Scotch Bon­net pep­pers.

While these pep­pers are too spicy for the av­er­age Japan­ese palate to con­sume di­rect­ly, Umeza­wa not­ed that Japan has a vi­brant “spice-scale” food cul­ture. Brand­ing the Scor­pi­on pep­per as the world’s hottest in­gre­di­ent could open a spe­cialised com­mer­cial niche.

Green hy­dro­gen and re­gion­al lead­er­ship

Be­yond small-scale ex­ports, the am­bas­sador high­light­ed a ma­jor re­gion­al op­por­tu­ni­ty in the emerg­ing green hy­dro­gen sec­tor.

He point­ed to a land­mark re­search con­tract be­tween a Japan­ese firm and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) to de­vel­op hy­dro­gen tech­nol­o­gy.

The Japan­ese pri­vate sec­tor views T&T’s ex­ist­ing, ro­bust petro­chem­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture at Point Lisas as an ide­al “cen­tre of ex­cel­lence” for this tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.

“Last year, one of the Japan­ese com­pa­nies got a con­tract with the Uni­ver­si­ty of West In­dies to de­vel­op the tech­nol­o­gy of hy­dro­gen, us­ing the very strong petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try. The Japan­ese com­pa­ny, they find a bit of at­trac­tive­ness, a bit of com­pet­i­tive pow­er for the petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try. That’s why the Japan­ese com­pa­ny finds that Trinidad and To­ba­go could be the best place to do the tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment,” Umeza­wa stat­ed.

While cur­rent­ly a bi­lat­er­al re­search col­lab­o­ra­tion, the am­bas­sador not­ed that UWI en­vi­sions this project evolv­ing in­to a re­gion­al hub that could ex­port green hy­dro­gen tech­nol­o­gy and ex­per­tise across the en­tire Caribbean.

Tourism and in­fra­struc­ture chal­lenges

The con­ver­sa­tion al­so touched on the “or­ange econ­o­my” and the un­tapped po­ten­tial of eco-tourism.

The am­bas­sador iden­ti­fied in­ter-is­land con­nec­tiv­i­ty as a pri­ma­ry bar­ri­er to at­tract­ing Japan­ese trav­ellers.

“I want to go to To­ba­go now, but it’s im­pos­si­ble. The flights are im­pos­si­ble,” he stat­ed, not­ing that the in­abil­i­ty to book spon­ta­neous trav­el acts as a de­ter­rent for in­ter­na­tion­al jour­nal­ists and tour op­er­a­tors look­ing to pro­mote To­ba­go’s “tourist as­sets.”

“If the gov­ern­ment re­al­ly wants to ex­plore eco-tourism or even just tourism, To­ba­go is def­i­nite­ly the best tourism as­set. Why can’t peo­ple eas­i­ly go to To­ba­go from Trinidad?” Umeza­wa asked.

He fur­ther ob­served that while T&T pos­sess­es world-class bird-watch­ing and hik­ing lo­ca­tions, the ac­cess roads to these sites are of­ten too nar­row or poor­ly main­tained for com­mer­cial tourism.

“It’s al­most im­pos­si­ble to reach the en­trance of the trekking path. So that’s why I think the Japan­ese tourist com­pa­nies or Japan­ese tourists or jour­nal­ists can­not pro­mote eco-tourism in Trinidad or To­ba­go. So if you in­vest that much eas­i­er ac­cess to the trekking path you can pro­mote much more vi­brant in­bound tourism,” Umeza­wa said.

He fur­ther sug­gest­ed that in­vest­ment in in­fra­struc­ture and in­creased me­dia cov­er­age of Japan­ese par­tic­i­pa­tion in lo­cal fes­ti­vals—such as the Japan­ese danc­ing teams that per­form at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah dur­ing Car­ni­val—could trig­ger a surge in in­bound tourism.

The am­bas­sador al­so en­cour­aged lo­cal agri­cul­tur­al firms to utilise a re­cent re­gion­al fund­ing agree­ment fo­cussed on glob­al food se­cu­ri­ty.

He specif­i­cal­ly not­ed the “huge flat land” in cen­tral and south­ern Trinidad that cur­rent­ly sits idle, con­trast­ing it with oth­er Caribbean is­lands that are most­ly moun­tain­ous.

“...If your farm­ers or your agri­cul­ture com­pa­nies ex­plore the in­no­va­tion idea to pro­duce more and more agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts to con­tribute to the world food sup­ply, this farm can ac­cept your idea,” Umeza­wa said, sug­gest­ing that T&T could mir­ror the large-scale pro­duc­tion suc­cess­es seen in coun­tries like Brazil by ap­ply­ing in­no­v­a­tive pro­duc­tion tech­nolo­gies.

In his clos­ing ad­vice to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and the gov­ern­ment, the am­bas­sador em­pha­sised that T&T pos­sess­es all the “good ma­te­ri­als” and a strong back­ground for suc­cess, but is cur­rent­ly be­ing held back by a lack of in­no­v­a­tive brand­ing and in­fra­struc­ture ac­cess.

He reaf­firmed Japan’s com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing T&T’s prod­ucts and mod­erni­sa­tion ef­forts, pro­vid­ed the nec­es­sary reg­u­la­to­ry and brand­ing shifts are made to bridge the two mar­kets ef­fec­tive­ly.