Gail Alexan­der

The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AM­CHAM T&T) has wel­comed the re­newed T&T/Venezue­lan en­gage­ment as an im­por­tant step to­wards build­ing a stronger, more se­cure and pros­per­ous re­la­tion­ship be­tween both coun­tries.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion made the state­ment fol­low­ing last Thurs­day’s vis­it by For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers to Venezuela and the re­newed com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries.

AM­CHAM T&T CEO Ni­rad Tewarie stat­ed, “The Joint Press State­ment is­sued fol­low­ing the vis­it iden­ti­fies trade, en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, cul­ture and col­lec­tive se­cu­ri­ty as pri­or­i­ty ar­eas for greater co­op­er­a­tion. AM­CHAM T&T be­lieves re­newed en­gage­ment can cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for eco­nom­ic growth and in­vest­ment, while ad­vanc­ing both coun­tries' en­er­gy in­ter­ests and strength­en­ing re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty.”

“Stronger bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions with Venezuela have the po­ten­tial to cre­ate mean­ing­ful op­por­tu­ni­ties for T&T across trade, in­vest­ment and en­er­gy, while strength­en­ing both coun­tries' eco­nom­ic re­silience and com­pet­i­tive­ness.”

He added, “Giv­en our ge­o­graph­ic prox­im­i­ty and shared en­er­gy in­ter­ests, deep­er co­op­er­a­tion can sup­port en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of our en­er­gy and down­stream sec­tors. At the same time, en­hanced di­a­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion on se­cu­ri­ty can help both coun­tries ad­dress shared chal­lenges, in­clud­ing transna­tion­al crime, traf­fick­ing and bor­der se­cu­ri­ty.”

Tewarie not­ed that the lead­ers of both Gov­ern­ments – T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez – will lead the state-to-state en­gage­ment.

“In the com­ing days, AM­CHAM T&T and the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain will be host­ing a mem­bers-on­ly ses­sion with US Em­bassy Chargé d'Af­faires Phillip Kern for com­pa­nies that are at­tend­ing the Venezuela In­ter­na­tion­al Oil and Gas Sum­mit (VIOGS) at the end of the month.”