The Phoenix Park In­dus­tri­al Es­tate is ex­pect­ed to host even more cor­po­rate ten­ants from the Peo­ple's Re­pub­lic of Chi­na quite soon, fol­low­ing a re­cent vis­it by an of­fi­cial del­e­ga­tion from the Ji­nan Mu­nic­i­pal Gov­ern­ment in Chi­na’s Shan­dong Province.

The Ji­nan Mu­nic­i­pal Gov­ern­ment Del­e­ga­tion, which com­prised 10 se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, vis­it­ed this coun­try dur­ing April 21-23, 2023. 

In­vest­ment pro­mo­tion agency, In­vesTT, re­ports in a re­lease that the del­e­ga­tion sees Trinidad and To­ba­go “as sol­id ground for trade and in­vest­ment and specif­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fied the ten­ant­i­ng of e TecK’s Phoenix Park In­dus­tri­al Es­tate as high on their agen­da for col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the two coun­tries.” 

Al­ready, some four Chi­nese ten­ants have com­mit­ted to set­ting up op­er­a­tions there.  The Es­tate is 95% com­plet­ed.  It is the first Caribbean project to be un­der­tak­en un­der the pa­ra­me­ters of the Chi­nese Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive via a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing signed by both coun­tries in 2018.

“This is the 2nd Chi­nese del­e­ga­tion vis­it in the month of April, the first be­ing from the Zhe­jiang Province,” re­ports In­vesTT’s Vice Pres­i­dent of In­vestor Ser­vices, Sta­cy Adams.

“The vis­its were made pos­si­ble through week­ly vir­tu­al col­lab­o­ra­tion with our Trinidad and To­ba­go Em­bassy in Bei­jing and the mar­ket­ing arm of the Bei­jing Con­struc­tion En­gi­neer­ing Group, as we aim to ful­fil our man­date to ten­ant the Es­tate with at least 10 Chi­nese com­pa­nies,” Adams ex­plained.  “We cur­rent­ly have four com­mit­ted ten­ants from Chi­na.”

On Fri­day, April 21, the Del­e­ga­tion met with Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try, Sen­a­tor Paula Gopee-Scoon, and top ex­ec­u­tives from In­vesTT and Ex­porTT.

Dur­ing the dis­cus­sions, the Head of the Del­e­ga­tion, Chen Bai­wei—who is Deputy Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al at the For­eign Af­fairs Of­fice of the Shan­dong Provin­cial Peo­ple’s Gov­ern­ment—out­lined the group’s in­ter­est in pro­mot­ing eTecK’s Phoenix Park In­dus­tri­al Es­tate to en­cour­age Chi­nese com­pa­nies to es­tab­lish their op­er­a­tions there.

Min­is­ter Gopee-Scoon shared Gov­ern­ment’s plans for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion with a heavy fo­cus on man­u­fac­tur­ing and mar­itime in­dus­tries.  She al­so in­vit­ed Chi­nese co-op­er­a­tion in agri-in­vest­ment, food pro­duc­tion, “smart agri­cul­ture” and a seed va­ri­ety pro­gramme.

Ms. Bai­wei in­di­cat­ed her open­ness for col­lab­o­ra­tion in the area of agri-in­vest­ment, not­ing that Shan­dong Province is seen as the “bas­ket of Chi­na”, be­cause most of the coun­try’s agri­cul­tur­al out­put orig­i­nates there.

Al­so dis­cussed at the meet­ing were plans for cre­at­ing a Chi­na-Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre to pro­vide Chi­nese com­pa­nies with in­for­ma­tion on Caribbean trade and in­vest­ment des­ti­na­tions, as well as the de­vel­op­ment of cul­tur­al con­nec­tion pro­grams be­tween Chi­na and Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In ad­di­tion, an in­vi­ta­tion was ex­tend­ed to vis­it the Ocean Decade Co­op­er­a­tion Cen­tre as the Shan­dong Provin­cial Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly un­veiled their de­vel­op­ment plans and busi­ness mod­els for mod­ern ma­rine in­dus­tries.  An in­vi­ta­tion al­so was ex­tend­ed for T&T youths to par­tic­i­pate in the Glob­al Youth Con­fer­ence tak­ing place in Ju­ly 2023.

Of­fi­cials from In­vesTT and eTecK host­ed the Shan­dong Province del­e­ga­tion to a tour of Phoenix Park, on Sat­ur­day, April 22.

“The group was ex­cit­ed to see that the Es­tate is 95% com­plet­ed and with one of their own na­tion­als, Sum­mit Lug­gage, first in the process of set­ting up their man­u­fac­tur­ing equip­ment in one of the com­plet­ed fac­to­ry shells,” In­vesTT re­ports in its re­lease on the vis­it.

Shan­dong is one of Chi­na’s top man­u­fac­tur­ing provinces and al­so has a fo­cus on in­vest­ment co­op­er­a­tion in over­seas projects in hous­ing, ed­u­ca­tion, con­struc­tion and pow­er gen­er­a­tion.

Mem­bers of the del­e­ga­tion in­clud­ed se­nior rep­re­sen­ta­tives from:

●   For­eign Af­fairs Of­fice of the Ji­nan Mu­nic­i­pal Peo­ple’s Gov­ern­ment

●   Shan­dong Provin­cial De­part­ment of Cul­ture and Tourism

●   De­part­ment of Com­merce of Shan­dong Province

●   Shan­dong De­part­ment of Agri­cul­ture and Rur­al Af­fairs

●   Bu­reau of Agri­cul­ture and Rur­al Af­fairs of the Ji­nan Mu­nic­i­pal Peo­ple’s Gov­ern­ment

●   Co­op­er­a­tion and Ex­change Bu­reau of Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Ji­nan Area of Chi­na Pi­lot Free Trade Zone

●   Uni­ver­si­ty of Ji­nan

●   Shan­dong Hi-Speed Group Co. Ltd.

●   Shan­dong In­ter­na­tion­al Eco­nom­ic and Tech­ni­cal Co­op­er­a­tion Group Ltd.