RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T, Pradeep Singh Ra­jpuro­hit, has called for a ma­jor push to ex­pand bi­lat­er­al trade be­tween the coun­tries, urg­ing stronger ex­ports and im­ports of methanol, ve­hi­cles, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and plas­tic prod­ucts be­tween the two coun­tries.

Speak­ing with busi­ness­peo­ple from the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce at RPM Plaza in San Fer­nan­do on Sat­ur­day night, at an event ti­tled Do­ing Busi­ness With In­dia, Ra­jpuro­hit said the cur­rent lev­el of trade is “far be­low the po­ten­tial” and should be in­creased to at least US$1 bil­lion.

“When you look at the trade num­bers, it comes to about US$370 mil­lion in the last fi­nan­cial year,” Ra­jpuro­hit said.

“Our fi­nan­cial year is from April to March, and Trinidad and To­ba­go is way ahead of us when it comes to num­bers. Out of US$341 mil­lion, US$220 mil­lion is the ex­port from Trinidad and To­ba­go to In­dia, where­as our ex­port here is US$121 mil­lion. We may say there is an im­bal­ance, but the im­por­tant point is this num­ber is still far be­low the po­ten­tial.”

The High Com­mis­sion­er said T&T’s ex­ports to In­dia are dom­i­nat­ed by petro­chem­i­cals.

“Out of your US$221 mil­lion, US$195 mil­lion is on­ly about min­er­al fu­els, oils, and re­lat­ed prod­ucts,” he not­ed. “There is a de­mand for methanol in In­dia. From In­dia to Trinidad and To­ba­go, I see three ma­jor prod­ucts — ve­hi­cles, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and plas­tic and re­lat­ed ar­ti­cles.”

Ra­jpuro­hit said prod­ucts from In­dia are of­ten more ex­pen­sive in T&T be­cause they ar­rive via “mid­dle­men,” rather than di­rect­ly from man­u­fac­tur­ers.

“Many of the prod­ucts you see in Trinidad and the re­gion do not come di­rect­ly from In­dia. They come through oth­er chan­nels, and as a re­sult, the cost in­creas­es. The mar­gin made by the mid­dle­men makes the cost high­er when it comes to the cus­tomers and con­sumers here,” he ex­plained.

He stressed that there is “a spe­cial con­nec­tion” be­tween the peo­ple of both na­tions and that this should trans­late in­to stronger com­mer­cial ties.

“The po­ten­tial for ex­ports is great,” he said.

“We have close con­nec­tions, the way we fol­low the cul­ture, the way of life. I think this num­ber needs to be im­proved to at least a bil­lion or more.”

He called for greater col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Gov­ern­ment, busi­ness cham­bers, and the pri­vate sec­tor to iden­ti­fy and act on trade op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Ra­jpuro­hit al­so point­ed to oth­er ar­eas ripe for co­op­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing tex­tiles and ap­par­el, agri­cul­ture, re­new­able en­er­gy, and processed foods.

“If you are bring­ing these items in bulk, the cost will go down. I see items like rice, tea, spices, nuts, even processed veg­eta­bles and fruits. Can we make some kind of con­cert­ed ef­fort so these items are brought here in a big­ger quan­ti­ty?” he sug­gest­ed.

On phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, he con­grat­u­lat­ed T&T for adopt­ing the In­di­an Phar­ma­copeia.

“It means that all these med­i­cines avail­able in In­dia, sub­ject to cer­tain test­ing and qual­i­ty stan­dards, will be avail­able in Trinidad and To­ba­go di­rect­ly with­out get­ting in­to all those hur­dles. This will make a dif­fer­ence in the life of a com­mon hu­man be­ing here,” he said, adding that low­er prices will soon be pos­si­ble once the mar­ket opens up to di­rect In­di­an sup­pli­ers.

He al­so spoke of In­dia’s strengths in re­new­able en­er­gy, med­ical tourism, and af­ford­able mo­bil­i­ty so­lu­tions such as elec­tric rick­shaws, which he said could be ide­al for short­er com­mutes in T&T.

“These are avail­able in In­dia as mar­kets, they can be tapped in­to. I see that it will make a dif­fer­ence in the mo­bil­i­ty sec­tor,” he said.

The High Com­mis­sion­er added that his mis­sion was ready to link lo­cal com­pa­nies with In­dia’s many ex­port pro­mo­tion coun­cils, cov­er­ing every com­mod­i­ty from cof­fee and tea to tex­tiles and ma­chin­ery.

“We are here in the High Com­mis­sion, this is our du­ty, this is one of our man­dates — that we con­nect, link the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties,” he said.

Ra­jpuro­hit al­so urged for con­tin­ued di­a­logue.

Al­so in at­ten­dance at Sat­ur­day’s event were San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris and Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath.