Raphael John-Lall

Chile’s Am­bas­sador to T&T, Hernán Núñez Mon­tene­gro, is hop­ing that soon T&T and Chile will con­clude the par­tial scope agree­ment that both coun­tries have been ne­go­ti­at­ing for years.

In May, T&T’s Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try in a state­ment said this coun­try and the South Amer­i­can na­tion had com­menced the Fourth Round of Ne­go­ti­a­tions for a Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment. The Min­istry saidthat the Fourth Round will be held over a pe­ri­od of three con­sec­u­tive days in San­ti­a­go, Chile and would build up­on the suc­cess of the pre­vi­ous ne­go­ti­at­ing rounds held in 2021 and 2022.

The Min­istry of Trade added that ne­go­ti­a­tions will con­tin­ue on is­sues such as mar­ket ac­cess, le­gal and in­sti­tu­tion­al is­sues, San­i­tary and Phy­tosan­i­tary Mea­sures (SPS), rules of ori­gin and ori­gin pro­ce­dures, trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, Tech­ni­cal Bar­ri­ers to Trade (TBT), trade reme­dies and com­pe­ti­tion pol­i­cy.

In de­liv­er­ing the 2024 Bud­get last Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ments when he men­tioned that T&T was in on-go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions with Cu­ra­cao and Chile to sign such agree­ments. He said do­ing so would ex­pand mar­ket ac­cess and deep­en trad­ing “with tar­get­ed coun­tries and mar­kets of in­ter­est.”

“To­day we are ne­go­ti­at­ing a trade agree­ment, tech­ni­cal­ly called the ‘Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment.’ The fifth and hope­ful­ly fi­nal round of ne­go­ti­a­tions will take place in Port-of- Spain next De­cem­ber. Chile has been work­ing for years to strength­en the ex­ter­nal sec­tor. This process has re­sult­ed in a grad­ual, but per­sis­tent re­duc­tion in tar­iffs and the sign­ing of var­i­ous free trade agree­ments, which to date are a to­tal of 31 Free Trade Agree­ments (FTA’s), with 65 economies, cov­er­ing 88 per cent of the world’s Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct (GDP) and has ac­cess to 65 per cent of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion. With this, Chile’s ex­ports sup­ply can en­ter an ex­pand­ed mar­ket of 5 bil­lion peo­ple un­der pref­er­en­tial con­di­tions,” Núñez said.

Núñez spoke last Wednes­day at the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) Do­ing Busi­ness With the World Se­ries we­bi­nar.

He point­ed out that next year, Chile and T&T will com­mem­o­rate 60 years of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions and Chile has had an Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain for al­most 20 years.

“In 2010, then pres­i­dent Michelle Bachelet vis­it­ed T&T. In 2017, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley trav­elled to Chile. Both coun­tries share a re­spect for hu­man rights. There is a strong friend­ship and it is al­ways easy to do busi­ness with friends.”

He al­so said both coun­tries are work­ing to­wards the goal of eco­nom­ic and oth­er forms of re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

“We have come a long way but we have to con­tin­ue in this di­rec­tion. Every­thing we do must be for the ben­e­fit of our cit­i­zens.”

He al­so spoke about Chilean prod­ucts that are world fa­mous and have added to the Chilean brand.

“Per­haps most of you have had the chance to en­joy a glass of Chilean wine and per­haps you have done so here in Port-of-Spain, or Mi­a­mi, or Lon­don, or Tokyo or Bei­jing. In­deed, nowa­days Chilean wines can be found in many dif­fer­ent places in the world. This is not by chance; it is the re­sult of per­ma­nent work over time. From this and oth­er pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ences we have learned a lot and to­day we want to share them with you.”

Trade op­por­tu­ni­ties

TTC­SI’s pres­i­dent Mark Edghill, who al­so spoke dur­ing the we­bi­nar, said in terms of trade, a cou­ple years be­fore the pan­dem­ic, Chile had to­tal trade fig­ures with T&T of US$6 bil­lion in 2018 alone.

He said Chile is one of the largest im­porters of LNG from T&T.

“In 2017 alone, we sup­plied 92 per cent of Chile’s LNG im­ports val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$650 mil­lion, and al­so ac­count­ed for 38 per cent of ex­ports from Chile to CARI­COM. In 2022, ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions COM­TRADE data­base on in­ter­na­tion­al trade, Chile im­port­ed some US$652.63 mil­lion worth of goods from T&T—al­most all of which was com­prised of min­er­al fu­els, oils, dis­til­la­tion prod­ucts and in­or­gan­ic chem­i­cals.”

He added that COM­TRADE da­ta re­vealed that in 2022, Chile’s ex­ports to T&T were val­ued at US$26.73 mil­lion, as both coun­tries sought to re­cov­er from the re­cent pan­dem­ic. The key items trad­ed in­clud­ed wood-pulp, wood ar­ti­cles and cel­lu­lose; veg­eta­bles, fruit and nut prepa­ra­tions, as well as ed­i­ble fruits; ce­re­als, flours and starch­es; and pa­per and pa­per­board prod­ucts.

He al­so spoke about the par­tial scope agree­ment which will give T&T ac­cess to Chile’s mar­ket of al­most 20 mil­lion.

“One item that has oc­cu­pied both our gov­ern­ments over the past sev­er­al years is the Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment which, when com­plet­ed, will al­low T&T’s ex­ports to en­ter the Chilean mar­ket, of over 19 mil­lion per­sons, at pref­er­en­tial rates of du­ties. The Fourth Round of Ne­go­ti­a­tions was com­plet­ed on June 1, 2023, and we cer­tain­ly look for­ward to en­hanced co­op­er­a­tion be­tween us in the ar­eas of trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion and elec­tron­ic trade.”

Fi­nal­ly, he spoke about the im­por­tance of ser­vices to both T&T’s and Chile’s economies.

“Ac­cord­ing to the World Bank col­lec­tion of de­vel­op­ment in­di­ca­tors, the trade in ser­vices per­cent­age of GDP for both T&T and Chile is es­sen­tial­ly equal. In Chile, it was re­port­ed at 10.59 per cent in 2022; where­as in T&T it was re­port­ed at 10.66 per cent in 2021.

“As such, it is clear that the prospects are ex­cel­lent for us to stim­u­late growth in our re­spec­tive ser­vices sec­tors and we are tak­ing the first steps with to­day’s we­bi­nar, so that both our ser­vices en­tre­pre­neurs and firms can hit the ground run­ning,” said Edghill.