KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

T&T’s na­tion­al flag was proud­ly fea­tured in Hom­e­na­je a Lati­noaméri­ca, a vi­brant trib­ute to Latin Amer­i­ca pre­sent­ed by the Chilean Folk­loric Dance Com­pa­ny—An­tuma­pu—at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, on Sep­tem­ber 30.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Chile arts group, led by artis­tic di­rec­tor Os­car Ramírez, took cen­tre stage as the high­light of the Chilean Em­bassy’s Na­tion­al Day cel­e­bra­tions. The per­for­mance of­fered au­di­ences a cap­ti­vat­ing jour­ney through Chile’s rich tra­di­tions, mov­ing from the North with Si­curas y Pari­nas, to East­er Is­land’s Opa Opa—Sau Sau, through the cen­tral re­gions with Hua­sos y Gañanes, Arau­co’s Ru­catún, Chiloé’s Rin y Sir­il­la, and cul­mi­nat­ing in In­te­gración, a piece sym­bol­is­ing uni­ty.

Chilean Am­bas­sador Hernán Núñez Mon­tene­gro re­flect­ed on the long­stand­ing ties be­tween the two na­tions, not­ing that diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions were first es­tab­lished 61 years ago.

“The bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Chile is cur­rent­ly at its best lev­el,” he said. “This has been a long and suc­cess­ful jour­ney. We must now move for­ward to the next stage, which will re­quire com­mit­ment and proac­tiv­i­ty to achieve our com­mon goals.”

The am­bas­sador high­light­ed re­cent mile­stones in eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion. In April, T&T and Chile signed a Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment, cre­at­ing new av­enues for trade.

“This past Au­gust, Massy and the AVEN­TA group par­tic­i­pat­ed in the in­dus­try fair held in San­ti­a­go,” he said. “Next No­vem­ber, for the first time, a trade mis­sion or­gan­ised by TTMA will vis­it Chile. We wish them a suc­cess­ful and pro­duc­tive trip, and hope they en­joy Chile’s beau­ti­ful land­scapes, cui­sine, and renowned wines.”

Act­ing Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs and Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh praised Chile as one of the world’s fastest-grow­ing and most sta­ble economies, cit­ing its re­mark­able growth through­out the lat­ter half of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

“It is no won­der that Trinidad and To­ba­go and Chile have been able to main­tain such a fruit­ful trade re­la­tion­ship,” he said.

Dr Swarats­ingh added that work­ing with Chile re­mains a pri­or­i­ty for T&T, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing the Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment.

“This land­mark agree­ment builds on a lega­cy of shared com­mit­ment to open­ness, mu­tu­al pros­per­i­ty, and last­ing co­op­er­a­tion. It is a tes­ta­ment to both coun­tries’ ded­i­ca­tion to deep­en­ing trade re­la­tions.”

The agree­ment opens pref­er­en­tial ac­cess for T&T to Chile’s mar­ket of over 20 mil­lion peo­ple while fa­cil­i­tat­ing en­try of Chilean prod­ucts in­to the lo­cal mar­ket, paving the way for stronger eco­nom­ic ties in the years ahead.