KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Am­bas­sador of Chile to T&T, Her­nan Nuñez Mon­tene­gro is hop­ing for fur­ther col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween both coun­tries in terms of the re­cent sign­ing of a Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment (PS­TA). He was speak­ing at the third edi­tion of the Chilean Wine Night at his res­i­dence in Mar­aval on May 7.

“We are proud be­cause, a cou­ple of weeks ago, Trinidad and To­ba­go and Chile signed a Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment,” he said.

“This agree­ment rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ty and, at the same time, a big chal­lenge for both gov­ern­ments and, of course, for the pri­vate sec­tor.”

The PS­TA was signed on April 25, by for­mer min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon and the Chilean Am­bas­sador, to strength­en ef­forts to ex­pand trade re­la­tions and eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion.

The agree­ment, is the first signed by Chile in the Caribbean and the first for Trinidad and To­ba­go with a South Amer­i­can na­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease is­sued by the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try in April, Chile is an im­por­tant trad­ing part­ner and a main Latin Amer­i­can mar­ket for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The re­lease added that the sign­ing of the agree­ment will as­sist this coun­try to in­crease both en­er­gy and non-en­er­gy ex­ports as part of the gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts.

The av­er­age to­tal ex­ports from this coun­try to Chile over the pe­ri­od 2020 to 2024 were an es­ti­mat­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $710.6 mil­lion per an­num.

This fig­ure in­cludes en­er­gy ex­ports, which av­er­aged ap­prox­i­mate­ly $706.3 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly and non-en­er­gy ex­ports, which av­er­aged ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4.4 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.

The PS­TA will al­so pro­vide lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers with pref­er­en­tial ac­cess in­to Chile for prod­ucts un­der 267 tar­iff lines which en­ables trade of more than Pref­er­en­tial Mar­ket Ac­cess treat­ment in­to Chile for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy sec­tor will be pro­vid­ed for items such as methanol, am­mo­nia, LNG, avi­a­tion fu­els, base oils, lu­bri­cants, propane, bu­tane and urea.

In ad­di­tion, the list of items from Trinidad and To­ba­go’s non- en­er­gy sec­tor cov­ers du­ty free treat­ment for food and bev­er­age, cos­met­ics, chem­i­cals, con­struc­tion, pa­per, fash­ion and en­er­gy in­dus­tries. Specif­i­cal­ly non-en­er­gy items in­clude al­co­holic bev­er­ages, juices, pas­ta, co­coa prod­ucts, ketchup and oth­er condi­ments, wa­ters, con­crete, cloth­ing, cos­met­ics, fer­rous prod­uct, fruits and veg­eta­bles; as well as doors and win­dows.

The Chilean Wine event fea­tured Lidia Cortez the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean mar­ket of INVINA, one of the main winer­ies in Chile.