GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

As glob­al geopo­lit­i­cal shifts con­tin­ue to re­shape in­ter­na­tion­al trade, T&T’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor is ag­gres­sive­ly piv­ot­ing to­ward its clos­est neigh­bours.

In a move to cap­i­talise on ge­o­graph­ic prox­im­i­ty and new bi­lat­er­al agree­ments, lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers are look­ing be­yond their tra­di­tion­al Cari­com strong­holds to es­tab­lish a firm foothold in the French and Dutch Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) in­ward trade mis­sion with the French Caribbean coun­tries, Mar­tinique, Guade­loupe and French Guiana, TTMA pres­i­dent Dale Par­son high­light­ed this strate­gic shift, not­ing that the lo­gis­ti­cal night­mare of ship­ping from Eu­rope is dri­ving a “com­ing to­geth­er” of re­gion­al economies.

“With a lot of the geopol­i­tics that’s go­ing on world­wide right now, what we find hap­pen­ing is a com­ing to­geth­er and a col­lab­o­ra­tion of the coun­tries that are ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly clos­er to us. What this trade mis­sion is do­ing is they are com­ing to Trinidad to see what op­por­tu­ni­ties there are for their prod­ucts for Trinidad to buy, as well as for Trinidad to see what prod­ucts that we might be able to ex­port to the French ter­ri­to­ries,” Par­son ex­plained.

Ship­ping a con­tain­er from Eu­rope to the French or Dutch Caribbean could car­ry a price tag of rough­ly US$6,000 to US$7,000.

In stark con­trast, Par­son points out that sourc­ing the same goods from T&T could cost less than half that amount.

This nat­ur­al cost ad­van­tage is a pri­ma­ry dri­ver be­hind a se­ries of in­com­ing trade mis­sions where French del­e­ga­tions are vis­it­ing Trinidad to scout for prod­ucts, while lo­cal small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) ex­plore ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties in­to these un­tapped mar­kets.

“So it cre­ates a wider net, not just Cari­com, but it cre­ates a wider net and op­por­tu­ni­ties to get Trinidad prod­ucts in­to these ter­ri­to­ries as well,” Par­son added.

Neville Alexan­der, di­rec­tor of trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion at the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, who al­so spoke, em­pha­sised that while T&T shares a deep cul­tur­al and diplo­mat­ic his­to­ry with the French ter­ri­to­ries, the eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ship must now evolve.

He not­ed that cur­rent­ly, a stag­ger­ing 84 per cent of trade be­tween the na­tions is con­cen­trat­ed in en­er­gy prod­ucts.

“We need to change that and do more for all of our ex­porters es­pe­cial­ly our non-en­er­gy SMEs ex­porters. Build­ing strong and re­li­able trade re­la­tion­ships with re­li­able part­ners is key to our de­vel­op­ment and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts go­ing for­ward.

“We al­so want to en­cour­age deep­er col­lab­o­ra­tion in ser­vices par­tic­u­lar­ly tourism ser­vices. Trav­el be­tween Trinidad and is­lands such as Mar­tinique for in­stance has been grow­ing. It is our de­sire to fur­ther deep­en our en­gage­ments in these ar­eas as we seek to de­vel­op nich­es such as yacht­ing, med­ical, sport, busi­ness and eco­tourism as po­ten­tial dri­vers in this sec­tor,”Alexan­der said.

Be­yond trade, the TTMA has ex­pressed strong sup­port for the gov­ern­ment’s proac­tive se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, specif­i­cal­ly an­oth­er State of Emer­gency (SoE).

“The TTMA is ac­tu­al­ly very hap­py about these mea­sures be­cause they have a pro­found im­pact on sup­press­ing the lev­el of crime that would nor­mal­ly dis­rupt op­er­a­tions,” Par­son added.