The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) is ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to ex­pand trade and in­vest­ment be­tween T&T and Venezuela, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with a del­e­ga­tion from Su­cre State, Venezuela, who vis­it­ed the coun­try for trade-re­lat­ed en­gage­ments and left yes­ter­day.

TTMA in a news re­lease yes­ter­day said the meet­ing fo­cused on im­prov­ing mar­ket ac­cess, fa­cil­i­tat­ing the ex­change of goods and ser­vices, and iden­ti­fy­ing in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties that could strength­en com­mer­cial ties be­tween the two ter­ri­to­ries.

Dis­cus­sions in­clud­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers to source raw ma­te­ri­als from Venezuela, ex­port fin­ished prod­ucts to the Venezue­lan mar­ket, and ex­plore po­ten­tial in­vest­ments in Su­cre State.
The vis­it is the first by a del­e­ga­tion from Venezuela since Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez met on the side­lines of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York in Sep­tem­ber, sig­nalling re­newed en­gage­ment be­tween the two coun­tries.

The pro­posed ar­eas of col­lab­o­ra­tion could strength­en re­gion­al sup­ply chains, open new mar­kets for lo­cal busi­ness­es, and sup­port the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of T&T’s non-en­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

The TTMA is al­so ex­plor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Venezue­lan busi­ness­es par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC) 2027, which would pro­vide a plat­form for them to show­case their prod­ucts and ser­vices, con­nect with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al buy­ers and es­tab­lish com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ships with lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers and oth­er in­dus­try stake­hold­ers.

The as­so­ci­a­tion reaf­firmed plans to lead a trade del­e­ga­tion to Venezuela in Au­gust 2027. The pro­posed mis­sion is ex­pect­ed to let par­tic­i­pat­ing busi­ness­es as­sess the Venezue­lan mar­ket, build new com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ships and iden­ti­fy ar­eas for mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial trade and in­vest­ment.

The TTMA seeks to strength­en com­mer­cial links across the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca as man­u­fac­tur­ers look to di­ver­si­fy ex­port mar­kets, se­cure re­li­able sources of raw ma­te­ri­als, and im­prove the in­ter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness of lo­cal­ly man­u­fac­tured goods.

Through trade mis­sions, TIC, and con­tin­ued en­gage­ment with re­gion­al stake­hold­ers, the as­so­ci­a­tion in­tends to con­nect lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers with new mar­kets and strate­gic part­ners while ad­vo­cat­ing for an en­vi­ron­ment that sup­ports sus­tain­able busi­ness growth.

The TTMA adds that it plans to con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Su­cre State to iden­ti­fy prac­ti­cal op­por­tu­ni­ties for busi­ness­es in both ter­ri­to­ries to de­vel­op com­mer­cial part­ner­ships and trans­late ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est in­to trade and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.