Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon has ex­pressed keen in­ter­est to fur­ther de­vel­op the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in the ar­eas of trade and eco­nom­ic re­la­tions.

This, as Gopee-Scoon re­cent­ly re­ceived a vir­tu­al cour­tesy call from new­ly-ap­point­ed Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic to T&T Welling­ton Darío Ben­cosme Casa­taños.

Gopee-Scoon said T&T is ac­tive­ly seek­ing to fur­ther ex­pand its non-en­er­gy ex­ports to the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and high­light­ed an up­com­ing project to es­tab­lish a com­mer­cial at­taché in Ja­maica which would al­so have re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s mar­ket. This, she added, would pro­vide a strate­gic op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­creas­ing trade and busi­ness be­tween both coun­tries.

The min­is­ter al­so ex­pressed the need for both coun­tries to work to­geth­er to utilise the mar­ket space to the ad­van­tage of both sides and agreed to ex­plore and cap­i­talise on the com­ple­men­tar­i­ty and syn­er­gies that ex­ist be­tween T&T and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

Am­bas­sador Ben­cosme Casa­taños sug­gest­ed many ar­eas for col­lab­o­ra­tion, adding that he’s very en­thu­si­as­tic to work to­wards strength­en­ing the pro­duc­tive and pos­i­tive re­la­tion­ship with T&T in trade and in­vest­ment.

The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic is an im­por­tant trad­ing part­ner for Trinidad and To­ba­go, both as part of the re­gion­al bloc CAR­I­FO­RUM and un­der the Cari­com-Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic Free Trade Agree­ment.

T&T has been a net ex­porter to the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic over 2016 to 2020.

In 2020, this coun­try ex­port­ed prod­ucts val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$ 302 mil­lion and im­port­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$ 254 mil­lion from that mar­ket.

The main prod­ucts ex­port­ed in 2020 were urea, pre­pared foods, plas­tic bot­tles, glass bot­tles, cop­per con­duc­tors, toi­let pa­per and nat­ur­al gas, while the top im­port­ed prod­ucts were ba­nanas, min­er­al wa­ter, to­bac­co, plas­tic pack­ag­ing, gyp­sum, condi­ments, cir­cuit break­ers and av­o­ca­dos.