GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The pri­vate sec­tors of T&T and Guyana en­tered in­to eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion arrange­ment yes­ter­day with the for­mal sign­ing of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) to es­tab­lish a Joint Cham­bers of Com­merce Work­ing Mech­a­nism.

The agree­ment, signed by the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (TTCIC) and the George­town Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dus­try (GC­CI), cre­ates a per­ma­nent frame­work to dis­man­tle trade bar­ri­ers and ac­cel­er­ate com­mer­cial growth be­tween the two na­tions.

Speak­ing at the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny, TTCIC pres­i­dent Karen Yip Chuck em­pha­sised the agree­ment ex­tend­ed far be­yond a sim­ple pa­per sign­ing, de­scrib­ing it as an en­dur­ing struc­ture to help busi­ness­es iden­ti­fy chal­lenges, ad­vo­cate for so­lu­tions and un­lock fresh cross-bor­der op­por­tu­ni­ties.

She said the foun­da­tion for the ini­tia­tive dates back to the 2023 to 2024 pe­ri­od, when past TTCIC pres­i­dent Ki­ran Ma­haraj teamed up with col­leagues in Guyana to doc­u­ment the non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers hin­der­ing re­gion­al com­merce.

By re­plac­ing anec­do­tal com­plaints with an ev­i­dence-based in­ven­to­ry, the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort suc­cess­ful­ly re­solved sev­er­al long-stand­ing com­mer­cial dis­putes through di­rect gov­ern­ment en­gage­ment.

“That col­lab­o­ra­tion pro­duced tan­gi­ble re­sults. Sev­er­al long-stand­ing com­mer­cial is­sues were suc­cess­ful­ly re­solved through di­rect en­gage­ment with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties; reg­u­lar di­a­logue was es­tab­lished be­tween both cham­bers to ad­dress emerg­ing trade con­cerns; and, per­haps most im­por­tant­ly, a struc­tured in­ven­to­ry of non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers was cre­at­ed, al­low­ing is­sues to be tracked, pri­ori­tised and re­solved rather than ad­dressed on an ad hoc ba­sis,” Yip Chuck added.

The new­ly formed Joint Cham­bers of Com­merce Work­ing Mech­a­nism mir­rors suc­cess­ful in­sti­tu­tion­al plat­forms used else­where in the Caribbean.

In­stead of re­ly­ing on tem­po­rary, ad hoc fix­es, the mech­a­nism pro­vides a con­tin­u­ous, ac­count­able sys­tem where trade is­sues are doc­u­ment­ed, joint­ly re­viewed and es­ca­lat­ed for pub­lic-pri­vate res­o­lu­tion.

The ini­tia­tive al­so fea­tures strong syn­er­gy with the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“As the T&T Cham­ber, our fo­cus will re­main on the broad­er non-en­er­gy econ­o­my. We will con­tin­ue to cham­pi­on the in­ter­ests of man­u­fac­tur­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, ex­porters, ser­vice providers, re­tail­ers, SMEs and the wider busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty seek­ing to ex­pand op­por­tu­ni­ties in Guyana,” said Yip Chuck.

She added En­er­gy Cham­ber of T&T pres­i­dent and CEO at­tend­ed the cer­e­mo­ny, high­light­ing a com­ple­men­tary part­ner­ship with the GC­CI that tar­gets lo­cal con­tent, sup­ply chain in­te­gra­tion and tech­ni­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in the pe­tro­le­um sec­tor.

“Their re­cent­ly es­tab­lished part­ner­ship with the GGC­CI com­ple­ments this ini­tia­tive by fo­cus­ing specif­i­cal­ly on the en­er­gy val­ue chain, lo­cal con­tent, tech­ni­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion and sup­ply chain in­te­gra­tion with­in the pe­tro­le­um sec­tor. To­geth­er, our two or­gan­i­sa­tions pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive pri­vate sec­tor sup­port across both the en­er­gy and non-en­er­gy economies, en­sur­ing that busi­ness­es of every size and sec­tor can ben­e­fit from the deep­en­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween our coun­tries.”

“This is how we be­lieve re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion should work not through iso­lat­ed ini­tia­tives, but through co­or­di­nat­ed part­ner­ships built on trust, da­ta, ac­count­abil­i­ty and a shared com­mit­ment to re­mov­ing un­nec­es­sary bar­ri­ers to trade and in­vest­ment,” Yip Chuck said.

She em­pha­sised the ini­tia­tive is about mak­ing it eas­i­er for busi­ness­es to do busi­ness, cre­at­ing new com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties, sup­port­ing pri­vate sec­tor growth, strength­en­ing re­gion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness and de­liv­er­ing tan­gi­ble val­ue to T&T and Guyana.