Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Dr Amery Browne, Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs and His Ex­cel­len­cy Pert­ti Iko­nen, non-Res­i­dent Am­bas­sador of the Re­pub­lic of Fin­land to the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go met to dis­cuss a va­ri­ety of ways in which Trinidad and To­ba­go and Fin­land can in­crease their lev­els of in­ter­ac­tion, as well as press­ing world is­sues that af­fect both state en­ti­ties. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease...

Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Dr Amery Browne, Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs and His Ex­cel­len­cy Pert­ti Iko­nen, non-Res­i­dent Am­bas­sador of the Re­pub­lic of Fin­land to the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, ex­changed ideas on a range of top­ics dur­ing a cour­tesy call by the Am­bas­sador on 26th Oc­to­ber 2022. 

The Am­bas­sador was ac­com­pa­nied by Mr Troy Gar­cia, Hon­orary Con­sul for Fin­land and Mrs San­na Tavi, Ju­nior Desk Of­fi­cer, Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs of Fin­land. The Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary and of­fi­cers of the Eu­ro­pean Af­fairs Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs ac­com­pa­nied the Min­is­ter. 

Am­bas­sador Iko­nen, in his ca­pac­i­ty as the rov­ing Am­bas­sador for Fin­land to the Caribbean, vis­it­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go as part of a fact-find­ing tour to the re­gion by Team Fin­land. Team Fin­land is a con­sor­tium of Finnish state and qua­si-state en­ti­ties geared to­wards pro­mot­ing Fin­land abroad. 

The cour­tesy call at the Min­istry marked the cul­mi­na­tion of a se­ries of in­ter­ac­tions with oth­er se­nior Gov­ern­ment Of­fi­cials and busi­nessper­sons in Trinidad and To­ba­go, as Fin­land seeks to in­crease its lev­el of en­gage­ment with this coun­try. Among the is­sues dis­cussed was the war be­tween the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and Ukraine. 

Dur­ing this dis­cus­sion, Min­is­ter Browne re­mind­ed the Am­bas­sador that Trinidad and To­ba­go has been one of the out­spo­ken coun­tries call­ing for a ces­sa­tion of the hos­til­i­ties. Trinidad and To­ba­go and Fin­land have en­joyed diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions since 1972 and Min­is­ter Browne in­di­cat­ed that there ex­ist op­por­tu­ni­ties for en­hanc­ing these re­la­tions through co­op­er­a­tion in the ar­eas of ed­u­ca­tion, trade, en­er­gy, fish­ing, forestry, dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy and mar­itime ser­vices.