Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Stu­art Young met with Colom­bian Am­bas­sador Martha Ce­cil­ia Pe­nil­la-Per­do­mo to­day to dis­cuss grow­ing the trade re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two coun­tries with a spe­cif­ic em­pha­sis on agri­cul­ture. 

Dur­ing the meet­ing, the Colom­bian Am­bas­sador dis­cussed the neg­a­tive ef­fects the pan­dem­ic and the war be­tween Rus­sia and Ukraine has had on ob­tain­ing fer­til­iz­ers. 

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of En­er­gy:

Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, The Ho­n­ourable Stu­art R. Young, MP re­ceived a cour­tesy call from Her Ex­cel­len­cy, Martha Ce­cil­ia Pe­nil­la-Per­do­mo, Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary of the Re­pub­lic of Colom­bia; at the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Com­plex Head-Of­fice, to­day, Wednes­day 18th May 2022.
 
Her Ex­cel­len­cy was ac­com­pa­nied by Mrs. Hei­di Ari­adne Cortes Acos­ta, Sec­ond Sec­re­tary in Charge of Po­lit­i­cal Af­fairs of the Em­bassy and Ms. Rosa Car­oli­na Garzón Ro­driguez, Trade Ad­vi­sor, Pro­colom­bia Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the South East Caribbean.
 
The dis­cus­sions sur­round­ed a num­ber of mat­ters in­clud­ing the po­ten­tial for grow­ing the trade re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Colom­bia. Spe­cif­ic em­pha­sis was placed on the top­ic of agri­cul­ture, and Am­bas­sador Pe­nil­la-Per­do­mo not­ed the cur­rent dif­fi­cul­ty be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced by coun­tries in ac­quir­ing fer­til­iz­ers af­ter the ef­fects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic as well as the im­pact of the war be­tween Rus­sia and Ukraine.
 
 Her Ex­cel­len­cy drew to the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter’s at­ten­tion the chal­lenges that can be ex­pe­ri­enced by Colom­bia in ob­tain­ing the re­quired sup­ply of fer­til­iz­ers to the coun­try and dis­cussed in­creased op­por­tu­ni­ties for part­ner­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Colom­bia to fur­ther so­lid­i­fy the long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween both coun­tries in par­tic­u­lar in the en­er­gy sec­tor.
 
Min­is­ter Young wel­comed Am­bas­sador Pe­nil­la-Per­do­mo, thanked her for her vis­it and men­tioned that there is much to learn from Colom­bia. Min­is­ter Young al­so not­ed that there are many en­er­gy re­sources in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean that can be uti­lized for the ben­e­fit of the re­gion. He ex­pressed that Trinidad and To­ba­go is al­ways in­ter­est­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion and the fur­ther strength­en­ing of bi-lat­er­al re­la­tions with oth­er coun­tries.
 
Both par­ties agreed that re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion is in­te­gral for the ben­e­fit and long-term ad­vance­ment of both na­tions.