Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go has signed Air Ser­vices Agree­ments with Pana­ma and Ghana, paving the way for stronger avi­a­tion links with Latin Amer­i­ca and Africa.

The agree­ments were signed on Mon­day by For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment dur­ing the on­go­ing Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is lead­ing T&T’s del­e­ga­tion to the as­sem­bly.

The agree­ments es­tab­lish the frame­work for air ser­vices be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the two coun­tries, cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for greater con­nec­tiv­i­ty and clos­er eco­nom­ic, com­mer­cial and peo­ple-to-peo­ple ties.

The Gov­ern­ment said the arrange­ments are ex­pect­ed to sup­port tourism, trade and in­vest­ment while ex­pand­ing T&T’s in­ter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion net­work.

Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our wel­comed the agree­ments, de­scrib­ing them as part of the Gov­ern­ment’s broad­er strat­e­gy to ex­pand the coun­try’s air ser­vices part­ner­ships and glob­al reach.

The agree­ment with Pana­ma is ex­pect­ed to be par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant giv­en the coun­try’s sta­tus as a ma­jor avi­a­tion hub link­ing the Caribbean with Cen­tral, South and North Amer­i­ca.

Pana­ma is home to Toc­u­men In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, one of the re­gion’s busiest tran­sit hubs and a key gate­way for pas­sen­gers trav­el­ling across the Amer­i­c­as.

Mean­while, the agree­ment with Ghana pro­vides a frame­work for strength­en­ing avi­a­tion links be­tween T&T and the African con­ti­nent.

Ac­cord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment, the arrange­ment could help fos­ter clos­er bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions with Ghana while cre­at­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for trav­el, busi­ness and com­mer­cial ex­change.

The Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion said it will con­tin­ue col­lab­o­rat­ing with lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al stake­hold­ers to ex­pand T&T’s net­work of air ser­vices agree­ments.

The Gov­ern­ment said the ul­ti­mate goal is to strength­en the coun­try’s po­si­tion as a re­gion­al avi­a­tion hub while in­creas­ing in­ter­na­tion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty and open­ing new av­enues for eco­nom­ic growth.

The agree­ments form part of wider ef­forts to deep­en bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions with both Pana­ma and Ghana, with the Gov­ern­ment ex­press­ing op­ti­mism about fur­ther co­op­er­a­tion and en­gage­ment with the two coun­tries.