GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Ex­pect a fur­ther ex­pan­sion in the co-op­er­a­tive ac­tiv­i­ties be­tween T&T and Chi­na, says act­ing For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon, who de­liv­ered re­marks at the Chi­nese Spring Fes­ti­val Tem­ple Fair, which took place at the An­chor­age, Ch­aguara­mas, yes­ter­day.

Not­ing that both coun­tries are work­ing to­wards broad­en­ing the eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ship, Gopee-Scoon, al­so Trade Min­is­ter, said in 2023, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fine Co­coa Com­pa­ny, in part­ner­ship with a Chi­nese dis­trib­u­tor, start­ed the sale of the Trini­tario choco­late in Chi­na. “By the end of last year, four tonnes of this lo­cal­ly made prod­uct had been ex­port­ed to Chi­na, with a fur­ther 12 tonnes to be shipped through­out 2024,” she added.

Chi­nese Am­bas­sador Fang Qiu, who al­so spoke, said Chi­na was com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing more dri­ving forces for bi­lat­er­al co-op­er­a­tion in spe­cif­ic fields such as agri­cul­ture, new en­er­gy, and the dig­i­tal econ­o­my.

“We are de­ter­mined to work to­geth­er close­ly with Trinidad and To­ba­go to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty for a shared fu­ture, to de­liv­er more tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits to our two peo­ples. And I al­so call on my fel­low com­pa­tri­ots and Chi­nese en­ter­pris­es to con­tin­ue mak­ing your own con­tri­bu­tions to this no­ble cause,” he added.

In ad­di­tion to cul­tur­al ex­changes, Qiu said bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions have seen re­mark­able growth in the past year as the to­tal trade vol­ume reached a record high of US$1.34 bil­lion.

Not­ing that this year Chi­na and T&T will cel­e­brate the 50th an­niver­sary of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions, the am­bas­sador said Chi­na con­tin­ues its strong de­vel­op­ment mo­men­tum, adding that over the past year, Chi­na’s GDP achieved a 5.2 per cent in­crease and main­tained its po­si­tion as one of the world’s top economies.

“The long-term up­ward tra­jec­to­ry of Chi­na’s econ­o­my re­mains un­changed and the prospects for high-qual­i­ty de­vel­op­ment are guar­an­teed. Guid­ed by the idea of build­ing a com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture for mankind, Chi­na is will­ing to bring new op­por­tu­ni­ties to the world in­clud­ing T&T through its mod­erni­sa­tion achieve­ments,” Qiu said.

He added that since the Chi­nese Spring Fes­ti­val Tem­ple Fair was first launched last year, it has been wide­ly wel­comed as a lo­cal brand cul­tur­al event, adding that it pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for more lo­cal peo­ple to un­der­stand Chi­nese cul­ture and feel the charm of Chi­na. The event was well at­tend­ed.