T&T is be­ing en­cour­aged to “Think Eu­ro­pean” as it pur­sues eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and new in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, with the Eu­ro­pean Union iden­ti­fy­ing re­new­able en­er­gy, dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture and mar­itime con­nec­tiv­i­ty as key ar­eas for fu­ture col­lab­o­ra­tion.

That was the mes­sage from Pelayo Cas­tro, di­rec­tor for the Amer­i­c­as for the Eu­ro­pean Union, fol­low­ing a four-day vis­it to this coun­try last week that cul­mi­nat­ed in the first high-lev­el part­ner­ship di­a­logue un­der the Samoa Agree­ment, a land­mark en­gage­ment that marks a new phase in re­la­tions be­tween the Eu­ro­pean Union and T&T.

De­scribed by Cas­tro as the most sig­nif­i­cant of its kind in nine years, it brought to­geth­er a broad cross-sec­tion of gov­ern­ment min­is­ters re­spon­si­ble for for­eign af­fairs, trade, eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and oth­er key port­fo­lios.

While co­op­er­a­tion be­tween T&T and the EU has con­tin­ued over the years, Cas­tro said the Samoa Agree­ment pro­vides a mod­ern frame­work through which both sides could deep­en en­gage­ment and cre­ate more struc­tured op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­vest­ment, trade and de­vel­op­ment.

“We have con­tin­ued to co­op­er­ate, but now we have a new frame­work that al­lows us to mod­ernise our re­la­tion­ship with the Caribbean coun­tries and we’ve con­tin­ued to co­op­er­ate and en­gage but it was time for us to have a more fo­cused op­por­tu­ni­ty to have diplo­mat­ic ex­changes and to work on se­cu­ri­ty, trade, diplo­ma­cy,” Cas­tro told the Busi­ness Guardian.

He not­ed that this coun­try’s grow­ing in­flu­ence with­in the Caribbean and its up­com­ing tenure as a non-per­ma­nent mem­ber of the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil makes this an es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant mo­ment to strength­en ties.

Cen­tral to dis­cus­sions was the ques­tion of how T&T could ac­cel­er­ate eco­nom­ic growth be­yond its tra­di­tion­al de­pen­dence on oil and gas.

For Cas­tro, Eu­rope could play a much larg­er role in help­ing this coun­try achieve that ob­jec­tive.

“My in­vi­ta­tion com­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go is ‘Think Eu­ro­pean’,” he said.

The EU is al­ready a ma­jor eco­nom­ic part­ner for T&T and ac­cord­ing to Cas­tro, the Eu­ro­pean Union is the coun­try’s sec­ond-largest trad­ing part­ner un­der the Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment (EPA), with T&T en­joy­ing a sig­nif­i­cant trade sur­plus in the re­la­tion­ship.

How­ev­er, he said there is sub­stan­tial room to ex­pand eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion in­to new sec­tors as the Gov­ern­ment seeks to build a more di­ver­si­fied and re­silient econ­o­my.

The dis­cus­sions iden­ti­fied three broad ar­eas with par­tic­u­lar­ly strong po­ten­tial for col­lab­o­ra­tion: re­new­able en­er­gy, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and mar­itime con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

Re­new­able en­er­gy of­fers ma­jor op­por­tu­ni­ty

Al­though T&T re­mains a glob­al play­er in the oil and gas sec­tor, Cas­tro be­lieves re­new­able en­er­gy presents one of the coun­try’s most promis­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for long-term growth.

He said the Eu­ro­pean Union has al­ready un­der­tak­en work ex­am­in­ing the coun­try’s wind en­er­gy po­ten­tial and sees con­sid­er­able op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­vest­ment in both wind and so­lar gen­er­a­tion.

The prospect is par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant as glob­al mar­kets in­creas­ing­ly shift to­ward clean­er sources of en­er­gy while gov­ern­ments seek to meet sus­tain­abil­i­ty tar­gets.

Cas­tro stressed that Eu­rope’s in­ter­est is not lim­it­ed to the hy­dro­car­bons sec­tor.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the im­por­tance of con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in oil and gas, he ar­gued that T&T is well po­si­tioned to de­vel­op com­ple­men­tary re­new­able en­er­gy in­dus­tries ca­pa­ble of at­tract­ing new streams of in­vest­ment.

“Be­yond oil and gas this is a coun­try with a huge po­ten­tial in re­new­ables, wind and so­lar and we’ve al­ready done work with Trinidad and To­ba­go in iden­ti­fy­ing the po­ten­tial for wind re­lat­ed in­vest­ments for in­stance,” he said.

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion agen­da

Per­haps the most am­bi­tious dis­cus­sions cen­tred on the coun­try’s dig­i­tal fu­ture.

Cas­tro said T&T has al­ready made sig­nif­i­cant progress in mod­ernising gov­ern­ment ser­vices and dig­i­tal sys­tems, cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for even deep­er co­op­er­a­tion with Eu­rope.

One ma­jor pro­pos­al now un­der con­sid­er­a­tion is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of con­nect­ing this coun­try to a new sub­sea fi­bre­op­tic ca­ble net­work.

The pro­posed project would in­volve an ex­ten­sion of a ca­ble cur­rent­ly planned be­tween French Guiana and Mar­tinique, with an ad­di­tion­al branch link­ing T&T.

The EU has al­ready placed a co-in­vest­ment pro­pos­al on the ta­ble.

Ac­cord­ing to Cas­tro, the project could sig­nif­i­cant­ly ex­pand the coun­try’s da­ta ca­pac­i­ty, strength­en dig­i­tal re­silience and im­prove con­nec­tiv­i­ty for busi­ness­es, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and cit­i­zens.

In an in­creas­ing­ly dig­i­tal glob­al econ­o­my, such in­fra­struc­ture has be­come es­sen­tial to com­pet­i­tive­ness.

“The fu­ture econ­o­my it’s very much about da­ta and da­ta goes through ca­bles, fi­bre op­tic ca­bles. What we are of­fer­ing is to coin­vest in a sub­sea con­nec­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go of our Bel­la ca­ble,” Cas­tro said, as he ex­plained that stronger dig­i­tal con­nec­tiv­i­ty would re­duce vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, pro­vide greater re­dun­dan­cy and help po­si­tion this coun­try as a re­gion­al dig­i­tal hub.

How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that the op­por­tu­ni­ty is time sen­si­tive.

En­gi­neer­ing work on the wider ca­ble project is al­ready mov­ing for­ward and a de­ci­sion on T&T’s par­tic­i­pa­tion would need to be made with­in months rather than years.

“The mo­ment is now,” Cas­tro he stressed adding, “If the con­nec­tion is not made be­fore the project ad­vances, the op­por­tu­ni­ty could be missed.”

The pro­posed link would im­prove ac­cess to high-ca­pac­i­ty in­ter­na­tion­al net­works at a time when glob­al de­mand for dig­i­tal ser­vices, cloud com­put­ing, da­ta stor­age and on­line com­merce con­tin­ues to grow at un­prece­dent­ed rates.

Cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty part­ner­ship ex­pands

Close­ly linked to dig­i­tal con­nec­tiv­i­ty is cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, an­oth­er area where col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween T&T and the Eu­ro­pean Union is ex­pand­ing rapid­ly.

One of the high­lights of Cas­tro’s vis­it was the han­dover of T&T’s Na­tion­al Cy­ber Se­cu­ri­ty In­ci­dent Re­sponse Pol­i­cy, de­vel­oped with EU sup­port.

The ini­tia­tive forms part of the broad­er EU-Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean Dig­i­tal Al­liance launched in 2023.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion is sup­port­ed through a re­gion­al cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty cen­tre based in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and op­er­at­ed with ex­per­tise from Es­to­nia, one of the world’s lead­ing dig­i­tal na­tions.

Cas­tro de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as a prac­ti­cal ex­am­ple of how in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion could de­liv­er tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits for cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es.

With cy­ber­at­tacks be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly so­phis­ti­cat­ed and cost­ly, gov­ern­ments around the world are un­der pres­sure to strength­en dig­i­tal re­silience.

Re­cent cy­ber in­ci­dents af­fect­ing ma­jor in­sti­tu­tions and busi­ness­es glob­al­ly have high­light­ed the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture and dig­i­tal sys­tems.

The pol­i­cy pro­vides T&T with its first co­or­di­nat­ed frame­work for re­spond­ing to cy­ber threats and man­ag­ing cy­ber in­ci­dents.

Ac­cord­ing to Cas­tro, the strat­e­gy es­tab­lish­es clear re­spon­si­bil­i­ties across gov­ern­ment agen­cies and cre­ates a stronger foun­da­tion for pro­tect­ing pub­lic and pri­vate dig­i­tal as­sets.

“This may ap­pear in­vis­i­ble to many peo­ple, but the im­pact is very re­al,” he said.

Build­ing a re­gion­al lo­gis­tics hub

An­oth­er key area iden­ti­fied for fu­ture co­op­er­a­tion is mar­itime con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

Cas­tro said Eu­rope sees sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties to part­ner with T&T as the coun­try ad­vances am­bi­tions to strength­en its role as a re­gion­al lo­gis­tics and trans­ship­ment hub.

Eu­ro­pean com­pa­nies al­ready rank among the world’s largest op­er­a­tors in ship­ping, port de­vel­op­ment and mar­itime ser­vices.

The EU be­lieves those ca­pa­bil­i­ties could com­ple­ment lo­cal ef­forts to im­prove con­nec­tiv­i­ty with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

The fo­cus ex­tends be­yond phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture.

Im­proved mar­itime con­nec­tiv­i­ty would fa­cil­i­tate trade, in­crease busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties and strength­en in­te­gra­tion with neigh­bour­ing Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can economies.

Re­cent busi­ness mis­sions in­volv­ing Eu­ro­pean mar­itime firms have al­ready ex­plored op­por­tu­ni­ties with­in T&T’s lo­gis­tics sec­tor.

Cas­tro said ad­di­tion­al en­gage­ments are ex­pect­ed as pol­i­cy­mak­ers and pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers seek to iden­ti­fy spe­cif­ic in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Busi­ness lead­ers seek cer­tain­ty

Dur­ing his vis­it, Cas­tro al­so met with Eu­ro­pean busi­ness­es op­er­at­ing in T&T to dis­cuss the in­vest­ment cli­mate and prospects for ex­pan­sion.

While op­por­tu­ni­ties re­main sig­nif­i­cant, he said in­vestors con­sis­tent­ly iden­ti­fy le­gal cer­tain­ty and reg­u­la­to­ry sta­bil­i­ty as among the most im­por­tant fac­tors in­flu­enc­ing in­vest­ment de­ci­sions.

“Busi­ness­es want trans­paren­cy and clar­i­ty,” Cas­tro said not­ing that those con­cerns are not unique to T&T but are com­mon­ly raised through­out the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca.

He said a sta­ble and trans­par­ent reg­u­la­to­ry en­vi­ron­ment cre­ates the trust re­quired for long-term in­vest­ments.

Oth­er is­sues high­light­ed by busi­ness­es in­clud­ed ac­cess to fi­nanc­ing and for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty.

De­spite those chal­lenges, Cas­tro said com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to view T&T as an at­trac­tive lo­ca­tion be­cause of its skilled work­force, in­dus­tri­al ca­pa­bil­i­ties and strate­gic ge­o­graph­ic po­si­tion.

He re­turned to what he sees as one of the coun­try’s great­est com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tages: its peo­ple.

The coun­try’s ed­u­cat­ed labour force, tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise and en­tre­pre­neur­ial cul­ture, he ar­gued, pro­vide a strong foun­da­tion up­on which fu­ture in­vest­ment can be built.

Plant­i­ng the seeds for fu­ture growth

As his mis­sion con­clud­ed, Cas­tro de­scribed the vis­it as high­ly suc­cess­ful and ex­pressed op­ti­mism about the fu­ture of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and the Eu­ro­pean Union.

He praised what he called the open­ness and con­struc­tive en­gage­ment of lo­cal of­fi­cials and said dis­cus­sions re­vealed a gen­uine de­sire to deep­en co­op­er­a­tion.

The chal­lenge now, he said, is mov­ing from di­a­logue to im­ple­men­ta­tion.

From re­new­able en­er­gy projects and dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture to cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives and mar­itime de­vel­op­ment, nu­mer­ous op­por­tu­ni­ties have been iden­ti­fied. The next step would be trans­lat­ing those con­ver­sa­tions in­to con­crete in­vest­ments and mea­sur­able out­comes.

“We have plant­ed many seeds dur­ing this mis­sion,” Cas­tro said adding, “Now we need to fo­cus on re­sults.”

For T&T, the mes­sage from Eu­rope is straight­for­ward: sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties ex­ist to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my, strength­en com­pet­i­tive­ness and at­tract new in­vest­ment.