Business community welcomes T&T-Venezuela reset

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has wel­comed the re­open­ing of di­rect di­a­logue be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­newed dis­cus­sions on en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion, but says the fo­cus must now shift from diplo­ma­cy to im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Com­ment­ing on For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers’ vis­it to Venezuela on Thurs­day, the cham­ber said the en­gage­ment presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­vance sev­er­al key en­er­gy projects.

“For Trinidad and To­ba­go, the sig­nif­i­cance of this en­gage­ment lies pri­mar­i­ly in ad­vanc­ing en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion,” the cham­ber stat­ed.

“The dis­cus­sions should es­tab­lish a clear and prac­ti­cal path­way for pro­gress­ing the Drag­on field, the Lo­ran-Man­a­tee re­source and the Man­akin-Cocuina cross-bor­der field, to­geth­er with oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties in­volv­ing shared and ad­ja­cent nat­ur­al gas re­sources.”

The cham­ber not­ed that while the projects are at dif­fer­ent stages of de­vel­op­ment, they are col­lec­tive­ly crit­i­cal to the coun­try’s fu­ture gas sup­ply.

“The re­cent progress on Man­akin-Cocuina is en­cour­ag­ing, while Drag­on and Lo­ran-Man­a­tee re­main po­ten­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant sources of nat­ur­al gas for the coun­try,” it said.

Ac­cord­ing to the cham­ber, ad­vance­ment of these projects could help sus­tain the com­pet­i­tive­ness of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s LNG and petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­tries, gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change, at­tract in­vest­ment and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal busi­ness­es through­out the en­er­gy val­ue chain.

“As Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to ad­dress de­clin­ing do­mes­tic gas pro­duc­tion, the time­ly de­vel­op­ment of in­dige­nous, cross-bor­der and re­gion­al gas re­sources must be treat­ed as a na­tion­al eco­nom­ic pri­or­i­ty,” the cham­ber said.

“The cham­ber has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained that co­op­er­a­tion to de­vel­op and mon­e­tise these re­sources is eco­nom­i­cal­ly sound and mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion added that it sup­ports the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to en­gage Venezuela in a prag­mat­ic and con­struc­tive man­ner, while safe­guard­ing T&T’s na­tion­al in­ter­ests and ad­her­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al le­gal and com­mer­cial frame­works.

“The pri­or­i­ty now must be to move from di­a­logue to im­ple­men­ta­tion. We hope this en­gage­ment pro­duces clear next steps, de­fined re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and re­al­is­tic time­lines for ad­vanc­ing the projects that are com­mer­cial­ly and tech­ni­cal­ly ready to pro­ceed,” the cham­ber said.

“The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty stands ready to sup­port ini­tia­tives that strength­en en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and ex­pand eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty. The op­por­tu­ni­ty is sig­nif­i­cant. It must now be con­vert­ed in­to ac­tion.”

Busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions in San Fer­nan­do, Ch­agua­nas and across the re­gion­al cham­ber net­work, mean­while, have al­so wel­comed the im­prove­ment in re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries, iden­ti­fy­ing en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture, trade and se­cu­ri­ty as ar­eas with sig­nif­i­cant po­ten­tial.

Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh de­scribed the re­open­ing of en­gage­ment be­tween T&T and Venezuela as a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment fol­low­ing a pe­ri­od of strained re­la­tions.

“The joint Trinidad and To­ba­go-Venezuela state­ment speaks to im­proved diplo­ma­cy and clear op­por­tu­ni­ties in en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture, trade, mar­itime ser­vices and se­cu­ri­ty,” Singh said.

“For Trinidad and To­ba­go, Venezuela should be viewed not sim­ply as a source of oil and gas, but as a po­ten­tial ex­port mar­ket and trad­ing part­ner.”

He said T&T could lever­age its ex­per­tise in en­er­gy and pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices to par­tic­i­pate in Venezue­lan projects and help de­vel­op re­gion­al val­ue chains.

Singh al­so high­light­ed po­ten­tial ben­e­fits in agri­cul­ture, bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, in­tel­li­gence-shar­ing, an­ti-traf­fick­ing ef­forts and re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty. How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that im­proved re­la­tions alone would not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly boost in­vestor con­fi­dence.

“In­vestors will want to see trade agree­ments trans­lat­ed in­to ac­tu­al projects, in­vest­ment, jobs, ex­ports and eco­nom­ic growth,” he said.

“The biggest op­por­tu­ni­ty is to cou­ple diplo­ma­cy with eco­nom­ic strat­e­gy. The Gov­ern­ment should iden­ti­fy spe­cif­ic projects in en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture, lo­gis­tics, man­u­fac­tur­ing, tourism and pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices and ac­tive­ly in­volve the pri­vate sec­tor.”

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj de­scribed the Cara­cas meet­ing as “ex­cep­tion­al­ly good news” for T&T.

He said re­cent diplo­mat­ic progress demon­strat­ed how en­gage­ment be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Venezuela’s lead­er­ship could fos­ter pro­duc­tive busi­ness re­la­tion­ships.

“The cham­ber warm­ly wel­comes this time­ly mile­stone and stands ready to sup­port our lo­cal busi­ness sec­tor in cap­tur­ing these emerg­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties,” Ma­haraj said. “Mov­ing be­yond re­cent diplo­mat­ic fric­tion to es­tab­lish a struc­tured, mu­tu­al work plan fo­cused on our key eco­nom­ic pil­lars in oil, gas, agri­cul­ture and se­cu­ri­ty rep­re­sents a prac­ti­cal, for­ward-think­ing strat­e­gy that ben­e­fits both coun­tries.”

Ma­haraj not­ed that T&T pos­sess­es world-class tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise and down­stream in­dus­tri­al ca­pac­i­ty at Point Lisas and Point Fortin, fa­cil­i­ties that re­quire ad­di­tion­al feed­stock, while Venezuela has vast nat­ur­al gas and oil re­serves near T&T’s mar­itime bor­der.

“By pool­ing our fa­cil­i­ties and pro­cess­ing knowl­edge with their raw re­sources, both na­tions can joint­ly mon­e­tise these as­sets for im­me­di­ate bet­ter­ment and mu­tu­al re­cov­ery,” he said.

He stressed that cross-bor­der en­er­gy projects should be pur­sued with trans­paren­cy, in­ter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry align­ment and US sup­port to en­sure they re­main com­mer­cial­ly vi­able over the long term. He al­so point­ed to op­por­tu­ni­ties for co­op­er­a­tion in agri­cul­ture and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers pres­i­dent Vivek Char­ran said the re­set in re­la­tions was a pos­i­tive and en­cour­ag­ing de­vel­op­ment that could even­tu­al­ly at­tract sig­nif­i­cant for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment.

“It promis­es great re­lief and a se­cure and brighter fu­ture for Venezue­lans,” Char­ran said.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go-Venezue­lan ini­tia­tive sig­ni­fies a re­newed re­la­tion­ship that has tremen­dous po­ten­tial to bring pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments and pros­per­i­ty to both coun­tries.”

He al­so thanked the Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment for their role in re­build­ing re­la­tions, not­ing that re­gion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance to Venezuela fol­low­ing the re­cent twin earth­quakes had helped im­prove ties.

“The as­sis­tance to Venezuela from the re­gion, par­tic­u­lar­ly from Trinidad and To­ba­go af­ter the earth­quake, marked the de­par­ture from any rem­nants of cold re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries,” Char­ran said. “Cer­tain­ly, Del­cy Ro­dríguez is show­ing that she has the best in­ter­ests of her peo­ple and coun­try at heart.”