RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

T&T is see­ing few­er Venezue­lan boats, few­er goods and pas­sen­gers ar­riv­ing, and sig­nif­i­cant­ly less trade at its San Fer­nan­do and Ce­dros ports.

Na­tion­al­ly, com­merce has fall­en by over 50 per cent in re­cent years, with da­ta from the Unit­ed Na­tions Com­mod­i­ty Trade Sta­tis­tics Data­base show­ing a 56 per cent drop in bi­lat­er­al trade be­tween both coun­tries in 2017 and 2024.

The down­turn, part­ly dri­ven by es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States in re­cent times, is be­ing felt on the ground as fish­er­folk and Cus­toms of­fi­cers re­port a marked de­cline in mar­itime ac­tiv­i­ty.

At the San Fer­nan­do port yes­ter­day, a lone Venezue­lan car­go boat stood an­chored at sea. Venezue­lans had been await­ing pa­per­work to of­fload a car­go of lum­ber since Mon­day.

A source at the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said on­ly two Venezue­lan car­go boats now dock month­ly, bring­ing in ar­ti­cles of cloth­ing and wood. In times gone by, up to three car­go boats came week­ly to the Kings Wharf port, bring­ing in pot­tery, bags, plas­tic chairs, lum­ber, and cloth­ing.

How­ev­er, the source said re­cent ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States were not the rea­son why trade has dwin­dled. He said since the Venezue­lan econ­o­my start­ed to im­prove, many fam­i­lies re­turned to their home­land.

“This was hap­pen­ing long be­fore the Venezue­lan min­is­ter called our Gov­ern­ment shame­less for sid­ing with the US,” the source said.

Mean­while, at the Ce­dros port, Guardian Me­dia was told that pas­sen­ger traf­fic has al­so been de­clin­ing.

Coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said that no fer­ry docked at the port last week.

“Nor­mal­ly, the fer­ry comes twice week­ly on Tues­days and Thurs­days. Based on the in­for­ma­tion that we have, we have not seen the fer­ry come in for prob­a­bly the last week or so. In­for­ma­tion is that a lot of trav­el re­stric­tions have been placed on the Venezue­lan end for the fer­ry to come up to bring up pas­sen­gers and al­so car­ry pas­sen­gers back,” he said.

Back in June, Alana Med­i­na, man­ag­er of An­gel Del Orinoco, a pas­sen­ger fer­ry that car­ries up to 35 pas­sen­gers, said two ves­sels cur­rent­ly op­er­ate from Tu­cu­pi­ta, Venezuela, to the Ce­dros port, but pas­sen­gers were scarce.

“We used to make two trips a week, some­times more. But now, it’s down to just two boats—and we’re not even fill­ing them,” she said.

Mean­while, fish­er­men from the south­west­ern penin­su­la com­plained that while Venezue­lan trade is con­tin­u­ing, they were hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty fish­ing near the Venezue­lan bor­der as the T&T Coast Guard was chas­ing them away.

“This is just 10 miles from Fullar­ton, and the on­ly fish we’re hold­ing are close to the bor­der. On Sun­day, we took a chance and went, but the Coast Guard chased us and made us cut the seine,” a fish­er­man added.

At Ota­heite Bay, most fish­er­men had gone out to sea. Ram­cha­ran Par­tap said, “Every­thing is nor­mal. We’re try­ing to see what we can catch.”

Last week, Ota­heite fish­er­folk re­vealed they had an­chored their boats, as it was not lu­cra­tive to fish in the shal­low ar­eas.

How­ev­er, when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed, most of the fish­er­folk were al­ready out. Ma­hase Paramsooks­ingh said op­er­a­tions were nor­mal.

“We don’t usu­al­ly go far out. We’re fish­ing right in the shal­low be­cause we don’t know what could hap­pen out there,” he added.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment, and Tourism Ka­ma Ma­haraj to com­ment on the de­cline in trade, and we are await­ing his re­sponse.