Raphael John-Lall

Ar­genti­na’s new Am­bas­sador to T&T, Gus­ta­vo Mar­tinez Pan­di­ani, is not sat­is­fied with the lev­el of trade and busi­ness be­tween both coun­tries which has been “his­tor­i­cal­ly low” and he wants to see an in­crease in busi­ness done.

Pan­di­ani, who ar­rived in T&T in June, ex­plained to the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian dur­ing an in­ter­view why lev­els of trade have been low and gave ex­am­ples of Ar­gen­tine prod­ucts he would like to see ex­port­ed to T&T.

“One of my ob­jec­tives here is to in­crease Ar­gen­tine ex­ports to T&T. I would say that we have had a low lev­el of trade and we should have more bi­lat­er­al trade. Some­times the prob­lem is the lo­gis­tics. We need more di­rect con­nec­tions. We need more flights. We need more mar­itime con­nec­tions. The re­la­tion­ship with T&T goes be­yond trade and in­vest­ment. We need to work for the peo­ple of both coun­tries and not on­ly for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.”

He elab­o­rat­ed on what Ar­gen­tine prod­ucts he would like to see more of in T&T.

“Ar­genti­na has food se­cu­ri­ty and is a provider of food and en­er­gy. Ar­genti­na pro­vides more than ten times what we need for our­selves in terms of food and en­er­gy. Ar­genti­na is a huge pro­duc­er. I want to see more Ar­gen­tine prod­ucts in T&T’s su­per­mar­kets. We pro­duce every­thing and I mean every­thing in terms of food and agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts. From soya beans to corn to beef.”

He al­so said that he wants to see more wine from Ar­genti­na in T&T.

“We have beau­ti­ful wines. We have red wines, but al­so white, sweet wines and these are very nice for the Caribbean. I no­tice that the peo­ple of the Caribbean love white, sweet wines. I am al­ready work­ing with the dis­trib­u­tors like Sol­era (An­gos­tu­ra) and with Bry­dens be­cause I want to see more wines from Ar­genti­na in T&T’s su­per­mar­kets. As I did when I was the Am­bas­sador to Bar­ba­dos.”

Apart from wines, he al­so wants to see beef from Ar­genti­na in T&T as Ar­genti­na is one of the world’s top beef pro­duc­ers.

“We are al­ready sell­ing Ar­gen­tine beef in Bar­ba­dos af­ter many years of ne­go­ti­a­tions. I look for­ward to work­ing with the T&T au­thor­i­ties in or­der to get ap­proval to bring Ar­genti­na’s ex­cel­lent beef.”

Pan­di­ani be­lieves trade is a two-way route and al­so wants to see goods and ser­vices pro­duced from T&T in Ar­genti­na.

“A sus­tain­able trade re­la­tion­ship is a win-win for both coun­tries. We can sell what we pro­duce and you can sell what you pro­duce. Ar­genti­na can sell more wine, while T&T can sell Ar­genti­na more rum.”

He al­so said that T&T and Ar­genti­na cel­e­brate 60 years of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions this year.

Pan­di­ani is no stranger to the Caribbean re­gion hav­ing served in Caribbean coun­tries in Bar­ba­dos, St Kitts and Nevis, Grena­da and St Lu­cia as Ar­gen­tine Am­bas­sador.

He in­tends to take a hands-on ap­proach and promis­es to do more “field work” meet­ing not on­ly Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and busi­ness lead­ers but al­so go­ing in­to com­mu­ni­ties.

“What is field work? This is to work with the re­al peo­ple of T&T. I don’t like liv­ing in the diplo­mat­ic...talk­ing to my col­leagues about top­ics on­ly we care about, cock­tail re­cep­tions and that type of thing. I want to be part of T&T’s lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties. I want to be part of T&T as I will be liv­ing here for a cou­ple of years. All my projects will be geared to a re­al im­pact in the pro­duc­tive forces of T&T from the fish­ing and farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties to in­vest­ment and trade.”

Tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion

While Ar­genti­na has been com­mit­ted to the Caribbean for many years, he said T&T and Ar­genti­na have a spe­cial re­la­tion­ship be­cause of T&T’s his­tor­i­cal­ly in­flu­en­tial en­er­gy in­dus­try.

He point­ed out that at one time, Ar­genti­na used to buy T&T’s LNG (liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas) but now Ar­genti­na has its own nat­ur­al gas.

De­spite the glob­al move­ment to­wards al­ter­na­tive en­er­gy so­lu­tions and a low-car­bon econ­o­my, he said both T&T and Ar­genti­na have a right to use their re­sources as they see fit.

“T&T is one of the most im­por­tant coun­tries in Cari­com, not on­ly be­cause of the size of your coun­try but al­so be­cause of the oil and gas in­dus­try. Ar­genti­na is al­so an oil and gas pro­duc­er and it is a char­ac­ter­is­tic that we share. It makes us clos­er coun­tries in that we need to have as a strat­e­gy to con­nect with the world. For T&T, as well as Ar­genti­na, the pro­duc­tion of oil will keep on be­ing an im­por­tant re­source. T&T can play a role in the bridge be­tween Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. Not on­ly ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly, but po­lit­i­cal­ly.”

Apart from en­er­gy, he gave ex­am­ples of tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries.

“It is a re­al co­op­er­a­tion. It is not like some oth­er coun­tries try to im­pose some­times be­cause they have the re­sources. They give you all the an­swers. They know every­thing and you re­ceive a do­na­tion. In my opin­ion you are sup­posed to work to­geth­er from the be­gin­ning. A co­op­er­a­tion project is sup­posed to be done by both par­ties. If we want to co­op­er­ate, we must learn from each oth­er.”

He said he had a meet­ing with the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture in T&T where the Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary was part of the meet­ing and al­so the In­ter Amer­i­can In­sti­tute of Co­op­er­a­tion and Agri­cul­ture (IICA).

“We are work­ing to­geth­er in putting a project on Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence tools on flood mit­i­ga­tion. Af­ter the pas­sage of Beryl, this is a re­al­i­ty. It is not a the­o­ret­i­cal need. It is a very prac­ti­cal need. So, Ar­genti­na has a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence and a lot of tech­nol­o­gy de­vel­oped in terms of Ge­o­graph­ic In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems (GIS) ap­plied to cli­mate change and flood­ing and drought and agri­cul­ture tech­nolo­gies,” said Pan­di­ani.

“We and the IICA have a project where ex­perts will be brought from Ar­genti­na be­fore the end of the rainy sea­son of this year. T&T’s agri­cul­ture stake­hold­ers will be able to mit­i­gate the ef­fect of the flood­ing and drought. These are the types of projects that bring our coun­tries to­geth­er,” the Ar­gen­tine am­bas­sador said.

An­oth­er area of the econ­o­my that both coun­tries can part­ner on is tourism, he said, point­ing out that T&T be­ing a Caribbean coun­try, can help Ar­genti­na in this area.

Ar­genti­na cur­rent­ly holds the World Cup Cham­pi­onship and is the birth­place of Li­onel Mes­si, one of the best foot­ball stars of this gen­er­a­tion.

He said Ar­genti­na has been pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal sup­port to the Caribbean in the area of foot­ball for many years but Ar­genti­na has al­so been re­ceiv­ing as­sis­tance in crick­et from the Caribbean.

“I have been pro­vid­ing foot­ball co­op­er­a­tion to the Caribbean for at least eight years. I brought a West In­dies coach to Ar­genti­na to train our crick­eters. Be­lieve it or not, Ar­genti­na has a Crick­et team. We are not as good as the West In­dies, but we can learn from the Caribbean. This is a good ex­am­ple of co­op­er­a­tion. I can help you with foot­ball and you help me with crick­et.”

He spoke about a meet­ing with the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) where both sides agreed to share train­ing tips.

“We are or­ga­niz­ing a very im­por­tant event on Ju­ly 9. It will be the screen­ing of the of­fi­cial movie of Mes­si in Movi­eTowne. It will be a co­op­er­a­tion. It will be a big event and al­so the broad­cast­ing of the Co­pa Amer­i­ca game. There will al­so be tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion. Coach­es from Ar­genti­na will come here to work with T&T coach­es. We want to bring train­ers here to train T&T’s coach­es.”

Trade re­la­tions

Ac­cord­ing to the lat­est re­port avail­able from the Ar­gen­tine In­vest­ment and In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Agency, in 2022 Ar­genti­na ex­port­ed US$14.5 mil­lion worth of prod­ucts to T&T.

The main prod­ucts ex­port­ed from Ar­genti­na to T&T were soy­bean oil (US$8.43 Mil­lion), pack­aged med­i­cines (US$1.46 Mil­lion), and clean­ing prod­ucts (US$978,000).

Dur­ing the last 27 years, ex­ports from Ar­genti­na to T&T have in­creased at an an­nu­alised rate of 2.8 per­cent, go­ing from US$7.05 mil­lion in 1995 to US$14.5 mil­lion dol­lars in 2022.

On the oth­er hand, T&T ex­port­ed US$36.4 mil­lion worth of prod­ucts to Ar­genti­na in 2022. The main prod­ucts ex­port­ed from T&T to Ar­genti­na were ni­tro­gen fer­tilis­ers (US$20.4 Mil­lion), pe­tro­le­um gas (US$15.8 mil­lion), and hard liquor (US$30.3 k).

Dur­ing the last 27 years, ex­ports from T&T to Ar­genti­na have in­creased at an an­nu­alised rate of 10.2 per cent, go­ing from US$2.94 mil­lion in 1995 to US$36.4 mil­lion dol­lars in 2022.