Venezuela is seek­ing to at­tract Trinidad and To­ba­go busi­ness­es in­to a US$19.6 bil­lion in­vest­ment and re­con­struc­tion pro­gramme, with op­por­tu­ni­ties span­ning en­er­gy, petro­chem­i­cals, agri­cul­ture, man­u­fac­tur­ing, con­struc­tion and mar­itime ser­vices as the neigh­bour­ing coun­tries look to re­vive and ex­pand com­mer­cial ties.

Wil­son López, the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Venezuela’s Min­istry of the Peo­ple’s Pow­er for For­eign Af­fairs and In­ter­na­tion­al Trade, out­lined the op­por­tu­ni­ties dur­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion’s (TTMA) Do­ing Busi­ness in Venezuela we­bi­nar on Fri­day.

He iden­ti­fied T&Ts ge­o­graph­ic prox­im­i­ty to Venezuela, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 kilo­me­tres at the clos­est mar­itime point, as a sig­nif­i­cant ad­van­tage for busi­ness­es seek­ing to es­tab­lish com­mer­cial part­ner­ships and ac­cess the Venezue­lan mar­ket.

López de­scribed Venezuela as one of Latin Amer­i­ca’s faster-grow­ing economies in 2026, with oil pro­duc­tion reach­ing 1.2 mil­lion bar­rels per day by Au­gust. The in­crease in pro­duc­tion, he in­di­cat­ed, was help­ing to sus­tain eco­nom­ic growth and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for fur­ther in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion.

He al­so point­ed to changes in the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial and reg­u­la­to­ry en­vi­ron­ment, in­clud­ing gen­er­al li­cences is­sued by the Unit­ed States Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) on April 14, 2026, which he pre­sent­ed as part of an ex­pand­ed op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment for com­pa­nies in­ter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in Venezuela’s econ­o­my.

López iden­ti­fied liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG), am­mo­nia, methanol, and oil and gas ser­vices as ar­eas for co­op­er­a­tion, along­side agribusi­ness, man­u­fac­tur­ing, food pro­duc­tion, con­struc­tion and lo­gis­tics.

He al­so en­cour­aged com­pa­nies to ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties through for­mal bi­lat­er­al arrange­ments, in­clud­ing a pro­posed long-term im­port and ex­port agree­ment with a 30-year li­cence frame­work, which he pre­sent­ed as a mech­a­nism for pro­vid­ing greater cer­tain­ty to com­mer­cial en­gage­ment.

The pre­sen­ta­tion comes against the back­ground of in­ter­rup­tions in re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries dur­ing 2025. López ar­gued that the cur­rent open­ing pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­build com­mer­cial con­nec­tions and es­tab­lish longer-term part­ner­ships. López iden­ti­fied Venezue­lan ports, in­clud­ing Tor­tu­ga and La Guaira, as po­ten­tial gate­ways for ex­pand­ing ship­ping and lo­gis­tics ser­vices.

Agri­cul­ture and man­u­fac­tur­ing were al­so pre­sent­ed as ar­eas with room for de­vel­op­ment. López de­scribed Venezuela as hav­ing achieved 90 per cent sat­is­fac­tion in the growth of its agro-in­dus­tri­al sec­tor, al­though he did not elab­o­rate on the mea­sure­ment be­hind the fig­ure.

He en­cour­aged T&T busi­ness­es to ex­am­ine op­por­tu­ni­ties in food pro­duc­tion and the ex­port of non-tra­di­tion­al prod­ucts, par­tic­u­lar­ly as Venezuela seeks to strength­en do­mes­tic pro­duc­tion and re­build in­dus­tri­al ca­pac­i­ty.

The com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ty is al­so sup­port­ed by an ex­ist­ing trade re­la­tion­ship.

López placed av­er­age an­nu­al ex­ports be­tween T&T and Venezuela at US$4.397 mil­lion over 2024 to 2025, point­ing to in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty in non-oil ex­port cat­e­gories.

How­ev­er, the wider trade re­la­tion­ship has not reached its po­ten­tial, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the coun­tries’ ge­o­graph­i­cal prox­im­i­ty and the range of prod­ucts that could be ex­changed.

Trade agree­ment of­fers pref­er­en­tial ac­cess

Pro­vid­ing a prac­ti­cal guide to en­ter­ing the Venezue­lan mar­ket, Kaani­ta Shah, pro­gramme co-or­di­na­tor in the Trade Di­rec­torate of T&T’s Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism out­lined the op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able un­der the Cari­com-Venezuela Trade and In­vest­ment Agree­ment.

The agree­ment, which was signed and en­tered in­to force in 1993, pro­vides a frame­work for pref­er­en­tial trade in goods be­tween the par­ties.

Shah ex­plained that busi­ness­es could ben­e­fit from du­ty-free treat­ment on el­i­gi­ble prod­ucts un­der an­nex­es One and Two of the agree­ment. While An­nex One iden­ti­fies prod­ucts el­i­gi­ble for du­ty-free ac­cess, An­nex Two orig­i­nal­ly pro­vid­ed for the phased re­duc­tion of cus­toms du­ties. By 2026, those re­duc­tions have been com­plet­ed, mak­ing the list­ed prod­ucts du­ty-free.
She not­ed that the agree­ment cov­ers a broad range of goods, in­clud­ing fresh pro­duce, spices, cos­met­ics, toi­letries, processed foods, con­fec­tionery, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, fur­ni­ture, house­hold goods, ma­chin­ery and in­dus­tri­al parts, while oth­er prod­ucts cov­ered in­clude rum and spir­its, choco­late, gar­ments, footwear, non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages, pa­per and card­board prod­ucts.

Shah stressed the im­por­tance of ob­tain­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate Har­monised Sys­tem (HS) code, which de­ter­mines the cus­toms clas­si­fi­ca­tion of a prod­uct and helps es­tab­lish whether it qual­i­fies for pref­er­en­tial treat­ment.

Busi­ness­es must al­so un­der­stand the agree­ment’s rules of ori­gin, which de­ter­mine whether goods gen­uine­ly qual­i­fy as prod­ucts orig­i­nat­ing in T&T or an­oth­er Cari­com mem­ber state.

Un­der the gen­er­al rule, ma­te­ri­als sourced from coun­tries out­side Cari­com and used in as­sem­bling a fin­ished prod­uct must not ex­ceed 50 per cent of its free-on-board (FOB) ex­port val­ue.

There are more spe­cif­ic re­quire­ments for cer­tain man­u­fac­tured goods. Prod­ucts falling un­der HS chap­ters 61, 62, 63 and 64, cov­er­ing ap­par­el and footwear, are sub­ject to a 40 per cent FOB rule.

Ex­porters must ob­tain a cer­tifi­cate of ori­gin to demon­strate com­pli­ance with these re­quire­ments. Shah iden­ti­fied Glob­al T&T as the au­tho­rised cer­ti­fy­ing body un­der the Cari­com-Venezuela agree­ment.

The cer­tifi­cates are valid for 180 days from the date of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Di­rect ship­ment is an­oth­er re­quire­ment. Goods must be trans­port­ed di­rect­ly be­tween this coun­try and Venezuela. Where ship­ments pass through a third coun­try that is not a par­ty to the agree­ment, they must re­main un­der cus­toms su­per­vi­sion and can­not be trad­ed or al­tered dur­ing tran­sit.

Shah al­so high­light­ed pro­vi­sions deal­ing with dou­ble tax­a­tion, which re­move an ad­di­tion­al cost that could dis­cour­age busi­ness­es from in­vest­ing across the two mar­kets.

Oth­er ar­eas ad­dressed in the agree­ment in­clude trade pro­mo­tion, busi­ness ex­changes, trade mis­sions and ex­hi­bi­tions. While its pro­vi­sions on trade in ser­vices are less de­vel­oped than those cov­er­ing goods, Shah iden­ti­fied scope for fur­ther co­op­er­a­tion in that area.

She al­so drew at­ten­tion to the agree­ment’s safe­guard pro­vi­sions, which al­low Venezuela, un­der ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances, to in­tro­duce tem­po­rary pro­tec­tive mea­sures for up to one year.

Ex­porters urged to re­search mar­ket po­ten­tial

Shah en­cour­aged busi­ness­es to move be­yond sim­ply iden­ti­fy­ing prod­ucts that could qual­i­fy for pref­er­en­tial ac­cess and con­duct prop­er mar­ket re­search be­fore en­ter­ing Venezuela.

She high­light­ed the In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Cen­tre’s Trade Map as a use­ful re­source for iden­ti­fy­ing ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties from T&T to Venezuela.

Prod­ucts iden­ti­fied through the tool in­clude bread and pas­try, cur­tains, box­es, un­cooked pas­ta, flavoured wa­ter and sug­ar con­fec­tionery.

The plat­form al­lows busi­ness­es to ex­am­ine ex­ist­ing ex­port per­for­mance along­side un­re­alised mar­ket po­ten­tial, help­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers de­ter­mine where de­mand may ex­ist and which prod­ucts could of­fer op­por­tu­ni­ties for ex­pan­sion.

Shah al­so en­cour­aged ex­porters to con­tact Glob­al T&Ts trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion of­fice for more de­tailed mar­ket re­search based on their par­tic­u­lar HS codes and busi­ness sec­tors.

Her pre­sen­ta­tion al­so high­light­ed the im­por­tance of un­der­stand­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments be­fore com­mit­ting re­sources to the Venezue­lan mar­ket.

Venezuela’s in­vest­ment frame­work in­cludes an Or­gan­ic Law on Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones, a Con­sti­tu­tion­al Law on Pro­duc­tive For­eign In­vest­ment, re­forms to the hy­dro­car­bons leg­is­la­tion, min­ing leg­is­la­tion and mea­sures in­tend­ed to ac­cel­er­ate and stream­line ad­min­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dures.

López out­lined a six-step in­vest­ment process in­volv­ing the Venezue­lan for­eign af­fairs and in­ter­na­tion­al trade au­thor­i­ties, along­side the In­ter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for Pro­duc­tive In­vest­ment (CIPI).

These in­sti­tu­tions are in­tend­ed to guide in­vestors through the reg­is­tra­tion process, doc­u­men­ta­tion and the li­cences re­quired to op­er­ate in the coun­try.

He es­ti­mat­ed that the process could take be­tween 30 and 90 days, while in­di­cat­ing that the au­thor­i­ties were work­ing to re­duce the time­frame.

Pay­ment se­cu­ri­ty was an­oth­er con­sid­er­a­tion raised dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion. López point­ed to the avail­abil­i­ty of con­firmed let­ters of cred­it and guar­an­tee let­ters as mech­a­nisms to sup­port com­mer­cial trans­ac­tions and pro­vide greater as­sur­ance to in­vestors.

He al­so iden­ti­fied Venezuela’s SE­NI­AT sin­gle win­dow for for­eign trade as an im­por­tant mech­a­nism for im­prov­ing the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of cus­toms and trade pro­ce­dures.

Re­build­ing com­mer­cial con­nec­tions

The we­bi­nar al­so pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­am­ine the his­to­ry of trade be­tween the two coun­tries and the work be­ing un­der­tak­en to strength­en non-hy­dro­car­bon com­merce.

Dean Mark Chinslick, at­tached to T&T’s Em­bassy in Cara­cas and rep­re­sent­ing the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, de­scribed Venezuela and T&T as neigh­bour­ing coun­tries with a shared his­to­ry but con­sid­er­able room to deep­en their eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ship.

Chinslick, who has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Venezuela, Bo­livia, Pe­ru, Ecuador and Colom­bia, fo­cused on the non-hy­dro­car­bon trade re­la­tion­ship and the bi­lat­er­al arrange­ments in­tend­ed to fa­cil­i­tate greater com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.

He point­ed to the im­por­tance of the Cari­com-Venezuela agree­ment as a gov­ern­ing frame­work for trade, en­cour­ag­ing busi­ness­es to be­come fa­mil­iar with its pro­vi­sions rather than view­ing it sim­ply as a gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment arrange­ment.

The agree­ment, he ex­plained, pro­vides ex­porters with pref­er­en­tial ac­cess, but busi­ness­es must un­der­stand the prod­uct clas­si­fi­ca­tions, rules of ori­gin and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion re­quire­ments to take ad­van­tage of those ben­e­fits.

Chinslick al­so pre­sent­ed fig­ures show­ing an in­crease in T&T’s ex­ports to Venezuela from US$10.7 mil­lion in 2021 to US$33 mil­lion in 2025.

Among the prod­ucts ex­port­ed were food prepa­ra­tions, toi­letries, cloth­ing, elec­tron­ics and fur­ni­ture.

He used the fig­ures to demon­strate the po­ten­tial for non-en­er­gy trade to be­come a more sig­nif­i­cant part of the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship.

The pre­sen­ta­tions col­lec­tive­ly point­ed to an op­por­tu­ni­ty for this coun­try to di­ver­si­fy its ex­ports while strength­en­ing its po­si­tion as a sup­pli­er of goods and ser­vices to its clos­est South Amer­i­can neigh­bour.