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Monday, February 17, 2025

T&T imports US$11m in goods from Guatemala

by

20120502

Guatemala, the third largest coun­try in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, is look­ing to build a trad­ing re­la­tion­ship with T&T. Guatemala and T&T start­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions for a par­tial scope trade agree­ment at the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs in April 2012. Trade Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz said at the start of the ne­go­ti­a­tions: "Guatemala is an at­trac­tive mar­ket for T&T prod­ucts. Guatemala is the most pop­u­lous coun­try in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca: 14.3 mil­lion peo­ple. Its gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP) per capi­ta of an es­ti­mat­ed US$5,000 has been in­creas­ing an­nu­al­ly for the last ten years. The po­ten­tial to ab­sorb our com­pet­i­tive man­u­fac­tured prod­ucts from the food and bev­er­age, agro-pro­cess­ing and light man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tors."

It is the north­ern­most of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can na­tions. It is the size of Ten­nessee in the Unit­ed States. Its neigh­bours are Mex­i­co on the north and west, and Be­lize, Hon­duras, and El Sal­vador on the east. In an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian last Thurs­day, Am­bas­sador Guisela Godinez Sazo hailed the grow­ing ties be­tween the two grow­ing economies at the Em­bassy of Guatemala, Re­gent Tow­ers, West­moor­ings. She hopes this agree­ment will boost busi­ness and trade be­tween the two coun­tries.

"It is a means of bring­ing about busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties for both coun­tries in a bi­lat­er­al agree­ment. It be­gan April 11 and in three months, we should be con­clud­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions. The ne­go­ti­a­tions should be short. So the first round was in T&T and sec­ond round will be in Guatemala on May 14," she said. Godinez Sazo said Guatemala, which has had an em­bassy here for the last 12 years, views T&T as the step­ping stone to the Caribbean mar­ket. "Guatemala is the most pro­duc­tive coun­try in Latin Amer­i­ca be­cause of its econ­o­my. T&T is one of the most im­por­tant coun­tries in the Caribbean and this will bring more op­por­tu­ni­ties for us. "Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Cen­tral and Latin Amer­i­can re­gion is the most im­por­tant for this Gov­ern­ment in terms of com­mer­cial and busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties," she said. "Right now, our dis­cus­sions in ne­go­ti­a­tions re­volve around food prod­ucts, veg­etable prod­ucts, and oth­er big in­dus­tries in Guatemala like soaps, cook­ing oil, sug­ar. T&T has im­por­tant prod­ucts like urea, en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture.

"En­er­gy co-op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries is very im­por­tant. Right now, we im­port urea, fer­tilis­er, iron and oth­er en­er­gy prod­ucts."

Trade da­ta

Godinez Sazo said Guatemala ex­ports sug­ar to T&T. The val­ue of its 2011 sug­ar ex­ports was US$5,744,883. uatemala's sec­ond biggest ex­port to T&T in 2011 was pa­per, worth US$1,997,348. This was fol­lowed by US$1,119,923 worth of salt and sodi­um chlo­ride. In 2011, Guatemala's biggest im­ports from T&T were US$8,659,533 worth of iron and blocks.

The sec­ond was fer­tilis­ers of an­i­mal and veg­etable ori­gin, amount­ing to US$1,182,043. The third largest im­port from T&T was acyclic hy­dro­car­bons worth US$113,300. Guatemala's to­tal ex­ports to T&T in 2011 was US$11,113,108 and the val­ue of its to­tal im­ports for the same pe­ri­od was US$10,448,411. The bal­ance of trade be­tween the two coun­tries was US$8,721,759. "Right now the bal­ance of trade is in Guatemala's favour. We hope that by these agree­ments will lead a bet­ter bal­ance of trade be­tween the two coun­tries," she said.

Ties that bind

Godinez Sazo spoke about the many trade mis­sions be­tween T&T and Guatemala. "Over the last year, there have been many new busi­ness­es be­tween the two coun­tries. Now I am work­ing hard to have trade mis­sions be­tween the two coun­tries. Al­most every week, I have a Guatemalan busi­ness own­er who has in­ter­est in do­ing some sort of busi­ness with T&T," she said. This week the Guatemalan Group Kong came to T&T to have talks about set­ting up a new palm oil plant in T&T. "Kong is one of the most im­por­tant busi­ness groups in Guatemala. It is a com­pa­ny that pro­duces soap and palm oil and they are look­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of set­ting up a plant in T&T. They met with Min­is­ter of Trade and Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture and a com­pa­ny here that could pos­si­bly part­ner with them, like a joint ven­ture." The T&T Cham­ber of Com­merce led a trade mis­sion to Guatemala in June 2011.

The del­e­gates at­tend­ed the In­du­EX­PO 2011, the largest man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­po in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, host­ed by the Cham­ber of In­dus­try of Guatemala.

The trade mis­sion fo­cused on:

• food and bev­er­age

• con­struc­tion and build­ing

• dis­tri­b­u­tion

• fur­ni­ture

• chem­i­cals

• ship­ping

• man­u­fac­tur­ing

• phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals

• re­al es­tate

"About 25 com­pa­nies from T&T went to Guatemala to ex­plore dif­fer­ent busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties," Guatemala. She said there will al­so be Guatemalan com­pa­nies at the Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC) in May. "I think maybe four to six com­pa­nies will be there. These will be from the agri­cul­ture and food in­dus­tries." Guatemala sees T&T as a strong busi­ness and trade part­ner be­cause of the strength of T&T's econ­o­my and in­dus­try. "T&T has the strongest in­dus­tries and the best fi­nan­cial sec­tor in the Caribbean re­gion. Now it is the hub of the en­tire re­gion. We al­so want Guatemala as the hub of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can re­gion. We are the biggest econ­o­my of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can re­gion," Godinez Sazo said. Just two weeks ago, T&T Agri-Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion, busi­ness­man Arthur Lok Jack, and First Cit­i­zens were part of a T&T trade del­e­ga­tion to at­tend a se­ries of "In­vest in Guatemala" meet­ings. The agency In­vest In Guatemala was set up in in 1997 to pro­mote busi­ness and trade to coun­tries in­ter­est­ed in in­vest­ing there.

Trav­el and tourism

Godinez Sazo spoke about an agree­ment on tourism and cul­ture that would en­hance trav­el be­tween Guatemala and T&T. "We have to get the very im­por­tant at­trac­tive pack­ages that would en­cour­age trav­el be­tween the two coun­tries. Cul­ture be­tween the two coun­tries is very im­por­tant. We are work­ing on an agree­ment with the Min­istry of Tourism. It is a new tourist and cul­ture agree­ment. Maybe it would be signed next month in Guatemala." She cit­ed the ex­am­ple of Lok Jack ex­plor­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty of hav­ing stu­dents from the Arthur Lok Jack GSB do Span­ish im­mer­sion pro­grammes in Guatemala. "There are many ways in which the coun­tries can work to­geth­er," Godinez Sazo said.


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