Aleem Khan

The lev­el of trade be­tween T&T and Brazil, "in and out, both sides, is about US$1 bil­lion," Brazil­ian Am­bas­sador Paulo Tra­bal­li said in a Busi­ness Guardian in­ter­view at the em­bassy in St Clair, Port of Spain, on Sep­tem­ber 11. Af­ter a brief pause he added, "it could be bet­ter."

"The Brazil­ian side has the sur­plus. It varies a lit­tle bit, but it's about US$200 mil­lion. It de­pends on the year." T&T im­ports pe­tro­le­um prod­ucts from Brazil, and Brazil im­ports pe­tro­le­um and gas from T&T, he said. He said Brazil al­so im­ports am­mo­nia from T&T. The am­bas­sador said there is on­ly one Brazil­ian com­pa­ny here. That is OAS which is build­ing the high­way from San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin.

"They have start­ed con­struc­tion work on the site al­ready. It was the re­sult of a bid­ding process and the Brazil­ian com­pa­ny won," he said. Tra­bal­li said Brazil has a lot of ex­per­tise in civ­il en­gi­neer­ing. Brazil has built long, mas­sive high­ways, huge dams and much more, he said.

On bi­lat­er­al co-op­er­a­tion, he said, T&T has sent tech­ni­cians to Brazil "to see our ex­pe­ri­ence in the palm crop, in co­coa and hon­ey" pro­duc­tion. He said the ties be­tween the two coun­tries in food pro­duc­tion are strong.

"I think there are a lot of ar­eas where we can col­lab­o­rate to­geth­er. For ex­am­ple, we are try­ing to co-op­er­ate in ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion. We have a lot of routes to ex­plore."

T&T oil work­ers want­ed in Brazil

Some T&T na­tion­als are go­ing to Brazil to work in the oil­field, the am­bas­sador said.

"It is a process with­in the en­ter­prise. They are go­ing to Brazil to work in the off­shore op­er­a­tions. In that par­tic­u­lar field, we are ask­ing for peo­ple to go to Brazil be­cause Brazil has a deficit in the oil en­gi­neer­ing field and we are try­ing to at­tract young en­gi­neers and ex­perts in well drilling and spe­cial­i­sa­tions in the oil field. Many com­pa­nies are do­ing this in­ter­nal im­mi­gra­tion pro­gramme."

Tra­bal­li said the trend start­ed this year. Asked if it had any­thing to do with the deep­wa­ter dis­cov­ery, he said it is rather sim­ply be­cause, "Brazil needs it." He said the pro­fes­sion­als are be­ing lo­cat­ed where their spon­sor­ing com­pa­nies want them, which can be some­times 600 kilo­me­tres from the shore.

Ad­dress­ing what can be done to in­crease the trade be­tween Brazil and T&T he said, "Well, first of all, you have to in­crease the lev­el of de­vel­op­ment. I don't think there is a lack of op­por­tu­ni­ty," but world events have told in­vestors to slow down, and that it is a very risky time to in­vest.

Asked about the sim­i­lar­i­ties be­tween Brazil and T&T, he said there are many and list­ed a few, "We have the same Car­ni­val, the same mul­ti-eth­nic pop­u­la­tion, al­most the same his­to­ry. You have a his­to­ry of slav­ery. We have a his­to­ry of slav­ery as well. We are–Brazil­ians and Trin­bag­o­ni­ans–much more sim­i­lar than we think. I think the main dif­fer­ence is the lan­guage," he said.

Ques­tioned why there is not more trade tak­ing place be­tween T&T and Brazil if the two coun­tries are so sim­i­lar, he said, "This is a ques­tion of op­por­tu­ni­ty. If you grow more, you have the op­por­tu­ni­ty of do­ing more trade. It's a ques­tion of op­por­tu­ni­ty. In the whole eco­nom­ic sce­nario to­day, the na­tions are find­ing more dif­fi­cul­ty to take cred­it, to in­vest. Every­body is just cau­tious."

He said that some non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers in­clude some of T&T's san­i­tary reg­u­la­tions, but that he does not see "any re­al ob­sta­cle" to trade.

"The main ques­tion to­day is not about non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers but the macro-eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment. If the world was mov­ing in a good speed, peo­ple do­ing busi­ness would do more busi­ness."

Brazil­ians' flex­i­bil­i­ty

He said that one of Brazil's strengths in trade is that Brazil­ian busi­ness­peo­ple are very flex­i­ble. He said for ex­am­ple, Brazil sells beef to very dif­fer­ent coun­tries, in­clud­ing to Is­rael and to Jor­dan, each of which has very dif­fer­ent, and very strin­gent san­i­tary reg­u­la­tions, and yet, "we ac­cept (their reg­u­la­tions), so (they get the beef) how they want it cut, how they want it washed and so on."

Brazil does not ex­port beef to T&T, he said.

Asked about re­new­able en­er­gy, he said, "We are cham­pi­ons. I am very proud of that. We are cham­pi­ons. We can be proud that we have ethanol from sug­ar cane, and we are us­ing it to move our cars. More or less 25 per cent in each litre of fu­el" is ethanol.

As a re­sult, gas at the pump for the av­er­age Brazil­ian is much more af­ford­able. "There is a very good tourist ex­change be­tween T&T and Brazil," he said. "We have a lot of Brazil­ians who know T&T and a lot of re­lat­ed who know Brazil." The am­bas­sador said Car­ni­val is not the on­ly event tourists come to T&T?for. T&T tourists are go­ing to Brazil to ex­pe­ri­ence the Ama­zon and eco-tourism.

Asked if Brazil is in­ter­est­ed in trade with the Caribbean as the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) had sug­gest­ed the re­gion needs to ex­port to its largest neigh­bours–Brazil and Mex­i­co–to grow eco­nom­i­cal­ly, he said yes, Brazil is in­ter­est­ed.

Tra­bal­li said trade is a ques­tion of "sit­ting around the ta­ble" and say­ing, "I want to buy this. Do you want to sell?"