Making it easier for foreign investors to get business visas will make T&T and the rest of the region more attractive, Ariadna Perez, Director of Trade Development, Association of Caribbean States (ACS) said yesterday.
"If you give visas to make it easy for business persons to come to T&T to invest, that is good for the country. I do not think it is specific to T&T alone but to all the member states of the ACS. They have to come together and think about what they can achieve to build and enhance trade with each other. This is important for trade and investment," she said.
Perez spoke to the media yesterday at a meeting of the Working Group of Business Visas at the ACS head office, St Clair. The meeting facilitated dialogue among member states on procedures and facilities needed for effective and expeditious granting of visas to businesspeople and investors within the Caribbean region. The meeting also considered criteria for granting visas, taking into consideration issues like national security.
"We want to enhance trade among our countries. The ACS is like an umbrella to integrate the Latin countries with the Caribbean countries. The major challenge is to find out the promotion of our countries is going along with the security and integration of our countries," she said.
Ibrahim Abdool, Research Officer, Trade and Development Unit, T&T Chamber of Commerce, said the forum was important in sharing ideas and coming up with solutions for better trade and investment in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Abdool said member states like Cuba are making great strides in opening up to foreign investment. "We are hoping that T&T will use some of the lessons of other countries and we in T&T could share what they are doing to ensure that our business people can easily work among different economies to further develop trade," he said.
