An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go could be­gin see­ing tan­gi­ble trade op­por­tu­ni­ties with Venezuela’s Su­cre State in the com­ing months, with agri­cul­tur­al im­ports, lo­cal food pro­cess­ing, tourism and in­dus­tri­al in­vest­ment among the ar­eas be­ing ex­plored dur­ing Tues­day’s Busi­ness Round­table at the Hilton Trinidad.

Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador Ál­varo Sánchez Cordero ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the del­e­ga­tion’s vis­it would lead to con­crete com­mer­cial re­sults, while For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers out­lined plans for wider en­gage­ments be­tween the two coun­tries, in­clud­ing dis­cus­sions in­volv­ing agri­cul­ture, en­er­gy, tourism and fish­eries.

The im­me­di­ate chal­lenge is turn­ing the dis­cus­sions in­to busi­ness. Pro­pos­als in­clude im­port­ing Venezue­lan agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts for pack­ag­ing and can­ning in T&T, at­tract­ing lo­cal in­vestors to gas-re­lat­ed in­dus­tries in Su­cre, and restor­ing a di­rect mar­itime con­nec­tion be­tween Güiria and Ch­aguara­mas to move pas­sen­gers and car­go.

How­ev­er, no firm im­ple­men­ta­tion dates have been es­tab­lished. Sánchez Cordero ex­pects the Su­cre del­e­ga­tion to re­turn for fol­low-up dis­cus­sions in the near fu­ture, while the ship­ping in­dus­try has made it clear that a reg­u­lar mar­itime ser­vice will de­pend on de­mand, car­go vol­umes and whether op­er­at­ing costs can be cov­ered by rev­enue.

The round­table brought to­geth­er Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives, ship­ping in­dus­try of­fi­cials, tourism op­er­a­tors and in­vest­ment agen­cies to ex­plore com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties be­tween the neigh­bour­ing ter­ri­to­ries, which are sep­a­rat­ed by ap­prox­i­mate­ly sev­en miles.

Sánchez Cordero iden­ti­fied that prox­im­i­ty as a sig­nif­i­cant ad­van­tage, ar­gu­ing that it could make trade more ac­ces­si­ble and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for busi­ness­es to es­tab­lish part­ner­ships with­out re­ly­ing ex­clu­sive­ly on dis­tant mar­kets.

“I am al­so con­fi­dent that af­ter this meet­ing, af­ter this vis­it, many good things will start hap­pen­ing soon,” the am­bas­sador told Busi­ness Guardian.

Mar­itime link seen as pri­or­i­ty

The am­bas­sador high­light­ed that restor­ing a di­rect mar­itime con­nec­tion be­tween Güiria, in Su­cre State, and Ch­aguara­mas is among the del­e­ga­tion’s prin­ci­pal ob­jec­tives.

Sánchez Cordero said the pro­posed link was a pri­or­i­ty for Su­cre State, whose del­e­ga­tion in­clud­ed Port Au­thor­i­ty head Manuel Ro­dríguez. He de­scribed the ab­sence of a di­rect mar­itime ser­vice be­tween north­ern Trinidad and Su­cre as a ma­jor gap, giv­en the short dis­tance sep­a­rat­ing the ter­ri­to­ries.

The am­bas­sador said the last con­nec­tion had op­er­at­ed about two and a half years ago. Re-es­tab­lish­ing the ser­vice would fa­cil­i­tate pas­sen­ger and car­go move­ment, po­ten­tial­ly mak­ing it eas­i­er for busi­ness­es to trans­port goods be­tween the two ter­ri­to­ries.

Ja­son-Leigh Ay­ong, Group A chair­per­son for ves­sel op­er­a­tors, ship­ping agents and ship­ping lines with­in the Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, said ship­ping com­pa­nies would need ev­i­dence of suf­fi­cient de­mand be­fore com­mit­ting to a new route.

“There al­ways has to be a need, so a de­mand and sup­ply,” Ay­ong ex­plained.

He said op­er­a­tors would have to as­sess the po­ten­tial vol­ume of im­ports and ex­ports, the cost of us­ing ports on both sides, and the ex­pens­es as­so­ci­at­ed with run­ning a ves­sel. These in­clude port charges, salaries, ship­ping agents, and in­fra­struc­ture costs.

Ship­ping lines would then be able to de­ter­mine whether a pro­posed route could gen­er­ate suf­fi­cient rev­enue to jus­ti­fy the in­vest­ment.

Ay­ong said the del­e­ga­tion’s pres­ence could ini­ti­ate those dis­cus­sions by al­low­ing busi­ness­es to iden­ti­fy prod­ucts that could be trad­ed and es­tab­lish whether there was enough de­mand to sup­port reg­u­lar car­go move­ment.

Ship­ping agents could ap­proach op­er­a­tors with in­for­ma­tion about po­ten­tial trad­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties, af­ter which ship­ping lines could con­duct fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies and as­sess the fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty of a ser­vice.

Ay­ong in­di­cat­ed that he was not aware of an ex­ist­ing work­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween the lo­cal ship­ping in­dus­try and Su­cre State. Nev­er­the­less, he viewed the pro­posed con­nec­tion as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the in­dus­try to fa­cil­i­tate trade, pro­vid­ed the com­mer­cial con­di­tions were right.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones Au­thor­i­ty Stephen De Gannes al­so iden­ti­fied the need for a for­mal land­ing fa­cil­i­ty in T&T.

Al­though peo­ple al­ready trav­el be­tween the ter­ri­to­ries, De Gannes said the ex­ist­ing arrange­ments were not struc­tured to fa­cil­i­tate com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty as ef­fec­tive­ly as re­quired.

He ar­gued that an of­fi­cial land­ing area would im­prove the move­ment of goods and help cre­ate a more re­li­able chan­nel for busi­ness. South­ern Trinidad could ben­e­fit from the de­vel­op­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly if im­proved trans­port links en­cour­age in­vest­ment and gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment.

Agri­cul­ture of­fers an ear­ly op­por­tu­ni­ty

Agri­cul­ture and food pro­cess­ing emerged as po­ten­tial start­ing points for com­mer­cial co­op­er­a­tion, with De Gannes propos­ing that T&T ini­tial­ly im­port agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts from Venezuela for pack­ag­ing and can­ning lo­cal­ly.

The ap­proach would al­low lo­cal busi­ness­es to par­tic­i­pate in pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion, rather than re­ly­ing sole­ly on im­port­ed fin­ished prod­ucts. It could al­so cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for em­ploy­ment and en­cour­age more non-en­er­gy pro­duc­tion.

De Gannes said Venezuela had sig­nif­i­cant agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion and that T&T could ini­tial­ly source prod­ucts from its neigh­bour be­fore ex­plor­ing rec­i­p­ro­cal arrange­ments for lo­cal goods.

How­ev­er, busi­ness­es would need to de­ter­mine which prod­ucts could be sup­plied con­sis­tent­ly, what quan­ti­ties could be trans­port­ed, and whether the cost of im­port­ing, pro­cess­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing them would al­low them to com­pete in the lo­cal mar­ket.

De Gannes said the ini­tia­tive would sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s ob­jec­tive of di­ver­si­fy­ing the econ­o­my by ex­pand­ing pro­duc­tion out­side the oil and gas sec­tor.

He iden­ti­fied south­ern Trinidad as a po­ten­tial lo­ca­tion for clos­er com­mer­cial links with Su­cre, giv­en the ge­o­graph­i­cal prox­im­i­ty and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of im­prov­ing trans­port in­fra­struc­ture.

In­vest­ment would de­pend on hav­ing the fa­cil­i­ties need­ed to sup­port op­er­a­tions, as well as con­fi­dence that com­mer­cial arrange­ments could de­liv­er sus­tain­able re­turns.

“There is mon­ey to be spent, there is in­vest­ment to be made, we just need to make sure the in­fra­struc­ture sup­ports it,” De Gannes ex­plained.

He said both ter­ri­to­ries could ben­e­fit from in­creased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, em­ploy­ment and busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty if the nec­es­sary con­di­tions were es­tab­lished.

Sánchez Cordero al­so iden­ti­fied in­dus­tri­al in­vest­ment as an area of po­ten­tial co­op­er­a­tion, point­ing to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of es­tab­lish­ing gyp­sum plants in Su­cre State.

He ex­plained that the state had nat­ur­al gas re­sources and con­di­tions that could sup­port in­dus­tries re­quir­ing gas as an in­put. T&T in­vestors could po­ten­tial­ly par­tic­i­pate in de­vel­op­ing such fa­cil­i­ties.

The pro­pos­al could be ex­plored through spe­cial eco­nom­ic zones, which both ter­ri­to­ries have es­tab­lished to sup­port in­vest­ment and com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.

Sánchez Cordero cit­ed an ex­ist­ing arrange­ment in­volv­ing spe­cial eco­nom­ic zones in Venezuela and Colom­bia as an ex­am­ple of co­op­er­a­tion that could in­form dis­cus­sions be­tween T&T and Venezuela.

He said the pos­si­bil­i­ty of es­tab­lish­ing joint arrange­ments was among the ar­eas be­ing con­sid­ered for a com­mer­cial-in­dus­tri­al re­la­tion­ship.

While the wider Venezue­lan en­er­gy sec­tor re­mains un­der the con­trol of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, PDVSA and the Min­istry of Hy­dro­car­bons, the am­bas­sador iden­ti­fied down­stream ser­vices as an­oth­er area for busi­ness par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Tourism and in­vest­ment need fol­low-through

Tourism was an­oth­er area iden­ti­fied for de­vel­op­ment, with rep­re­sen­ta­tives ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to in­crease trav­el in both di­rec­tions and build on re­newed air con­nec­tiv­i­ty be­tween the coun­tries.

De Gannes re­called that Trinida­di­ans fre­quent­ly vis­it­ed Venezuela dur­ing the 1980s, when week­end trips and tour pack­ages were pop­u­lar. He wants to see that move­ment re­turn, with Venezue­lan vis­i­tors ex­pe­ri­enc­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s food, cul­ture and hos­pi­tal­i­ty, while lo­cal trav­ellers ex­plore at­trac­tions in Su­cre State.

He al­so iden­ti­fied a mar­itime pas­sen­ger ser­vice as a pos­si­ble com­ple­ment to air trav­el, pro­vid­ed the nec­es­sary in­fra­struc­ture and com­mer­cial arrange­ments could sup­port it.

Krista-Lee Look­it, founder and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of That Look­it Brand and mod­er­a­tor of the tourism pan­el, said the round­table was in­tend­ed to con­nect busi­ness­es, share mar­ket in­tel­li­gence and de­vel­op com­mer­cial part­ner­ships.

She iden­ti­fied Su­cre State’s ports, air­ports and tourism at­trac­tions, in­clud­ing its beach­es, as po­ten­tial op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­vest­ment and vis­i­tor ex­changes.

Look­it al­so point­ed to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of co­op­er­a­tion be­tween ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, de­scrib­ing the en­gage­ment as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to es­tab­lish prac­ti­cal steps that could ben­e­fit or­gan­i­sa­tions in both ter­ri­to­ries.

She said busi­ness­es need­ed bet­ter ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion about avail­able mar­kets and op­por­tu­ni­ties, as well as stronger con­nec­tions with po­ten­tial com­mer­cial part­ners.

For tourism op­er­a­tors, this could mean de­vel­op­ing pack­ages that com­bine air trav­el, ac­com­mo­da­tion and lo­cal at­trac­tions, while pro­mot­ing des­ti­na­tions that have re­ceived less at­ten­tion from Trinida­di­an trav­ellers.

Sobers de­scribed the Su­cre State vis­it as part of a wider diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment that in­clud­ed dis­cus­sions be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in Sep­tem­ber.

He said the round­table formed part of a broad­er se­ries of ex­changes ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue over the com­ing months and po­ten­tial­ly the next two years.

Sobers in­di­cat­ed that mem­o­ran­dums of un­der­stand­ing could emerge from the dis­cus­sions, but he placed par­tic­u­lar im­por­tance on en­cour­ag­ing the pri­vate sec­tors to es­tab­lish di­rect com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ships.

He said the Gov­ern­ment would work to re­move bu­reau­crat­ic ob­sta­cles that pre­vent busi­ness­es in dif­fer­ent coun­tries from trad­ing. At the same time, pri­vate com­pa­nies would be ex­pect­ed to iden­ti­fy op­por­tu­ni­ties and dri­ve com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.

Sánchez Cordero wel­comed the prospect of fur­ther gov­ern­ment en­gage­ment but could not pro­vide dates for dis­cus­sions in­volv­ing the two coun­tries’ cen­tral gov­ern­ments.

He point­ed to com­mu­ni­ca­tions ex­press­ing in­ter­est in rec­i­p­ro­cal vis­its by the coun­tries’ heads of gov­ern­ment and state, but of­fered no fur­ther de­tails on the tim­ing.