Trinidad and To­ba­go and Chile yes­ter­day com­menced the fourth round of ne­go­ti­a­tions for a Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment be­tween the two coun­tries.

The fourth round will be held over a pe­ri­od of three con­sec­u­tive days in San­ti­a­go, Chile and will build up­on the suc­cess of the pre­vi­ous ne­go­ti­at­ing rounds held in 2021 and 2022.

Ne­go­ti­a­tions will con­tin­ue on is­sues such as: mar­ket ac­cess; le­gal and in­sti­tu­tion­al is­sues; san­i­tary and phy­tosan­i­tary mea­sures (SPS); rules of ori­gin and ori­gin pro­ce­dures; trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion; tech­ni­cal bar­ri­ers to trade (TBT); trade reme­dies and com­pe­ti­tion pol­i­cy.

Among the ben­e­fits an­tic­i­pat­ed to emerge from the con­clu­sion of the agree­ment are: low­er im­port du­ties for lo­cal­ly pro­duced goods en­ter­ing the Chilean mar­ket, and elim­i­na­tion of known non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers.

Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so stands to gain from cheap­er in­puts for the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor and more af­ford­able con­sumer goods from Chile.

Both sides are al­so seek­ing to en­hance co­op­er­a­tion in the ar­eas of trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion and elec­tron­ic trade in or­der to fa­cil­i­tate trad­ing on­line be­tween the coun­tries.

The Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment be­tween T&T and Chile will al­low this coun­try’s ex­ports to en­ter the Chilean mar­ket of over 19 mil­lion per­sons.

The T&T del­e­ga­tion to Chile is led by chief ne­go­tia­tor, Col­in Con­nel­ly, Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go to Bel­gium. It com­pris­es Ran­dall Karim, deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try; Trudy Lewis, deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs; and Bri­an Ben­jamin, man­ag­er—trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, ex­porTT.

The Chilean del­e­ga­tion is led by chief ne­go­tia­tor, Se­bastián Gómez Fiedler, di­rec­tor gen­er­al of Bi­lat­er­al Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, Un­der­sec­re­tari­at of In­ter­na­tion­al Eco­nom­ic Re­la­tions of the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, Chile.