The T&T Govern­ment and the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Ghana yes­ter­day en­tered in­to an Agree­ment for the Rec­i­p­ro­cal Pro­mo­tion and Pro­tec­tion of In­vest­ments (ARP­PI).

The agree­ment was signed by Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Dr Amery Browne, on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment and Shirley Ay­orkor Botch­wey, Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and Re­gion­al In­te­gra­tion, on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment of Ghana.

The sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny was held in New York on the mar­gins of the high-lev­el week of the 79th Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

In a state­ment, the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs said the agree­ment marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the re­la­tion­ship be­tween both coun­tries, so­lid­i­fy­ing T&T’s part­ner­ship and lay­ing a foun­da­tion for deep­er col­lab­o­ra­tion and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the ex­ist­ing sol­id po­lit­i­cal re­la­tions, fos­ter­ing eco­nom­ic growth, by in­cen­tivis­ing the ex­pan­sion of trade and com­mer­cial re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries by the re­spec­tive pri­vate sec­tors.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has long-stand­ing his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al re­la­tions with Ghana, which have grown con­sid­er­ably over the years, the min­istry said in the state­ment, adding that Ghana is a gate­way to West Africa and has a pop­u­la­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 34 mil­lion peo­ple.

The min­istry said Ghana is cur­rent­ly one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s top ten trad­ing part­ners on the African con­ti­nent, of­fer­ing a wealth of op­por­tu­ni­ties for ex­pand­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion. Key sec­tors such as man­u­fac­tur­ing, mar­itime lo­gis­tics, busi­ness process out­sourc­ing, ho­tel and re­sort de­vel­op­ment, and agro-pro­cess­ing present sig­nif­i­cant po­ten­tial for deep­en­ing eco­nom­ic part­ner­ships and fos­ter­ing growth.

At the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Min­is­ter Browne high­light­ed the im­por­tant work done by the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try un­der the lead­er­ship of Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon.

The sign­ing of the agree­ment com­ple­ments the as­sid­u­ous ef­forts of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go to cre­ate a con­ducive en­vi­ron­ment to at­tract in­vest­ment and to fur­ther stim­u­late eco­nom­ic growth, said the min­istry.

Gopee-Scoon led a 50-mem­ber del­e­ga­tion to Ghana com­pris­ing the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and gov­ern­ment agen­cies in March. Dur­ing the vis­it, she met with His Roy­al Majesty As­an­te­hene Otum­fuo Os­ei Tu­tu II, King of Ashan­ti King­dom of Ghana. The Ghana­ian king was the guest of ho­n­our at T&T’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions in 2023.

In May, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley met with Ghana’s pres­i­dent Nana Aku­fo-Ad­do dur­ing a vis­it to the West African coun­try. Among the is­sues raised in those dis­cus­sions was the im­mi­nent fi­nal­i­sa­tion of a nat­ur­al gas deal be­tween the coun­tries.

The agree­ment signed yes­ter­day pro­vides the nec­es­sary in­vest­ment frame­work to sup­port and pro­tect new in­vest­ments be­tween both T&T and Ghana. It en­ables in­vestors from both coun­tries to en­gage in in­vest­ment ac­tiv­i­ties with con­fi­dence, as it guides the ex­pect­ed be­hav­iour of in­vestors and en­sures that the rights of in­vestors and States are pro­tect­ed, said the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs.

The agree­ment al­so of­fers pro­tec­tion such as fair and eq­ui­table treat­ment and pro­tec­tion against ex­pro­pri­a­tion, and es­tab­lish­es mech­a­nisms for re­solv­ing in­vest­ment dis­putes.