BRIDGETOWN–The Caribbean Ex­port De­vel­op­ment Agency (Caribbean Ex­port) of­fi­cial­ly launched the Be­lize Na­tion­al Trade In­for­ma­tion Net­work (N-TIN) at the Radis­son Ho­tel, Be­lize on Oc­to­ber 11.Be­lize is one of six coun­tries iden­ti­fied in a re­gion-wide scan of the trade sup­port in­sti­tu­tion land­scape as be­ing in the po­si­tion to move ahead with the es­tab­lish­ment of a N-TIN. The oth­er coun­tries in­clude T&T, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Bar­ba­dos, Suri­name, and Ja­maica.

Over the past year the agency has con­duct­ed a se­ries of work­shops and con­sul­ta­tive meet­ings with the se­lect­ed coun­tries to in­tro­duce the ap­proach and method­ol­o­gy that will be un­der­tak­en in the for­ma­tion of the N-TINs.

David Gomez, man­ag­er for Trade and Ex­port De­vel­op­ment at Caribbean Ex­port, said: "The N-TINs are cen­tral to the de­liv­ery of en­hanced trade in­for­ma­tion ser­vices and will con­tribute to the es­tab­lish­ment of mech­a­nisms at the re­gion­al lev­el for sim­i­lar ser­vices de­liv­ery...the process in­volves both da­ta col­lec­tion and com­pi­la­tion and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of ser­vices that re­spond to the trade in­for­ma­tion needs of Car­i­fo­rum ex­porters and the wider pri­vate sec­tor."

The Na­tion­al Trade In­for­ma­tion Net­work is a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween trade and busi­ness sup­port in­sti­tu­tions of the named coun­tries who have com­mit­ted to de­vel­op qual­i­ty trade in­for­ma­tion with­in their re­spec­tive coun­try, re­quired to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of a re­gion­al trade in­for­ma­tion sys­tem man­aged and im­ple­ment­ed by Caribbean Ex­port.

The N-TINs will pro­vide high qual­i­ty, rel­e­vant and time­ly in­for­ma­tion on ser­vices trade, trade and eco­nom­ic sta­tis­tics, mar­ket and sec­tor briefs, tar­iff and non-tar­iff da­ta, di­rec­to­ry of busi­ness­es (ex­porter/buy­ers), links to im­por­tant in­ter­me­di­arie such as trade pro­mo­tion or­gan­i­sa­tions and gov­ern­ment agen­cies, and the struc­ture and ex­port per­for­mance of na­tion­al economies with­in the Car­i­fo­rum re­gion. Ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion of this na­ture is crit­i­cal to any pri­vate sec­tor busi­ness that is look­ing to ex­port.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion of mem­bers in the net­work will be gov­erned by a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) which out­lines the ar­eas and modal­i­ties for the net­work mem­bers as it re­lates to the col­lec­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of trade in­for­ma­tion.

Each N-TIN will have an of­fi­cial launch that fea­tures the sign­ing of the MOU be­tween the net­work mem­bers, and the sign­ing of an MOU be­tween the a Na­tion­al Fo­cal Point and Caribbean Ex­port; as well as tech­ni­cal train­ing ses­sions with net­work mem­bers on the pro­to­cols for da­ta col­lec­tion, dis­sem­i­na­tion and the tools re­quired to build na­tion­al busi­ness and ex­port reg­istries.

CMC