Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon says re­search on the list of items im­port­ed from Rus­sia and Ukraine is now be­ing com­piled as the Russ­ian war on Ukraine es­ca­lates.

Gopee-Scoon is ex­pect­ed to re­lease fur­ther in­for­ma­tion as the sit­u­a­tion un­folds.

In a state­ment on Thurs­day, Gopee-Scoon said, “The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try is ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor­ing events in Ukraine as it re­lates to a pos­si­ble dis­rup­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al trade.”

 She added, “The min­istry has com­menced re­search as to the spe­cif­ic items which may be im­pact­ed and will work with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to mit­i­gate against any neg­a­tive im­pact.”

Mean­while, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat told Guardian Me­dia that it was too ear­ly to as­sess the im­pact that the war will have on T&T.

“Rus­sia and Ukraine are sig­nif­i­cant play­ers in the glob­al mar­ket for wheat and corn,” he said.

“It is too ear­ly to say how T&T will be af­fect­ed but it is some­thing that is al­ways on my radar and some­thing Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try and I dis­cuss with our lo­cal im­porters.”

Re­search done by agri­cul­ture econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj says T&T has an im­por­tant di­rect trade re­la­tion­ship with Rus­sia. 

He said T&T im­port­ed just about US$4 bil­lion in min­er­al fu­els and oils from the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion be­tween 2011 and 2018; an an­nu­al av­er­age of about US $495 mil­lion. 

This crashed in 2019 per­haps with the clo­sure of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery.

“Over the last five years (2016-2020), Rus­sia sup­plied 2.36 per cent of Chi­na’s to­tal im­ports across key sec­tors in­clud­ing food and en­er­gy. This trade ac­count­ed for 12.36 per cent of Rus­sia’s to­tal ex­ports,” Ma­haraj added.

The Ob­ser­va­to­ry of Eco­nom­ic Com­plex­i­ty (OEC) web­site which tracks trade with world economies said in No­vem­ber 2021 Rus­sia ex­port­ed US$220,000 and im­port­ed US$57.5k from T&T, re­sult­ing in a pos­i­tive trade bal­ance of $163k. 

“Be­tween No­vem­ber 2020 and No­vem­ber 2021, the ex­ports of Rus­sia have in­creased by $208k (1.64k%) from $12.7k to $220k, while im­ports de­creased by $-81.2k (-58.5%) from $139k to $57.5k,” the OEC re­port­ed. 

In No­vem­ber 2021, the top ex­ports of Rus­sia to Trinidad and To­ba­go were ma­chin­ery, veg­etable parch­ment, unglazed ce­ram­ics, and in­su­lat­ed wire while the top im­ports from T&T to Rus­sia were hard liquor and iron pipe fit­tings. (RDS)

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