Canada opens doors for T&T businesses

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Cana­di­an busi­ness­es are show­ing grow­ing in­ter­est in Trinidad and To­ba­go, with man­u­fac­tur­ers and oth­er lo­cal com­pa­nies be­ing of­fered greater op­por­tu­ni­ties to en­ter the Cana­di­an mar­ket large­ly tar­iff-free, Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Michael Callan says.

He was speak­ing at a meet-and-greet host­ed at the Gulf View Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Tues­day, where he high­light­ed grow­ing com­mer­cial ties be­tween the two coun­tries.

Callan said the over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty of prod­ucts ex­port­ed from Trinidad and To­ba­go can cur­rent­ly en­ter Cana­da with­out tar­iffs un­der the trade agree­ment be­tween the two coun­tries.

He said the op­por­tu­ni­ty was be­ing strength­ened by grow­ing in­ter­est among Cana­di­an com­pa­nies in im­port­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go prod­ucts, es­tab­lish­ing joint man­u­fac­tur­ing ven­tures and in­vest­ing lo­cal­ly.

“I think the busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties are ex­tra­or­di­nary right now, and on­ly grow­ing,” Callan said.

As part of the High Com­mis­sion’s ef­forts to deep­en its en­gage­ment with busi­ness­es in South Trinidad, Callan said he had re­cent­ly re­turned from a trade mis­sion to Toron­to led by Min­is­ter of Trade and In­vest­ment Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj, where a del­e­ga­tion of more than 30 Trinidad and To­ba­go busi­ness­es met with Cana­di­an com­pa­nies.

“They were met with ex­tra­or­di­nary amounts of en­thu­si­asm by Cana­di­an busi­ness­es, and we're look­ing to part­ner with both im­ports of their goods, and look at ex­port­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties and joint man­u­fac­tur­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties as well,” he said.

The High Com­mis­sion­er said the mo­men­tum con­tin­ued at the Cana­da-Caribbean In­vest­ment Sum­mit in Toron­to, from which he had re­turned short­ly be­fore Tues­day’s event.

He said Cana­di­an com­pa­nies had demon­strat­ed a strong ap­petite for in­vest­ment in the Caribbean, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Callan not­ed that the lev­el of in­ter­est was such that or­gan­is­ers of the in­vest­ment con­fer­ence had to turn away some prospec­tive reg­is­trants.

He al­so sig­nalled the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a fu­ture Cana­di­an trade del­e­ga­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go, po­ten­tial­ly led by a fed­er­al min­is­ter and ac­com­pa­nied by a large group of Cana­di­an busi­ness­es.

He said the del­e­ga­tion could in­clude es­tab­lished com­pa­nies seek­ing to deep­en ex­ist­ing re­la­tion­ships, busi­ness­es ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in the Caribbean for the first time and prospec­tive in­vestors in­ter­est­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“We've had a ter­rif­ic amount of mo­men­tum and of in­ter­est back in Cana­da to cel­e­brate Trinidad and To­ba­go and to talk about busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties,” Callan said.

The High Com­mis­sion­er said the pro­posed del­e­ga­tion would pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­nect Cana­di­an com­pa­nies with lo­cal busi­ness­es that could ben­e­fit from Cana­di­an part­ner­ships.

He said the com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ship was be­ing sup­port­ed by long­stand­ing con­nec­tions be­tween the two coun­tries, which ex­tend be­yond trade to ed­u­ca­tion, cul­ture and mi­gra­tion.

Callan said Cana­da had his­tor­i­cal­ly trad­ed lum­ber and salt­fish for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sug­ar and rum, while Cana­di­an lum­ber was al­so used in the foun­da­tions of some build­ings in Port of Spain.

He said the High Com­mis­sion was de­lib­er­ate­ly in­creas­ing its pres­ence in South Trinidad be­cause of the re­gion’s long­stand­ing con­nec­tions with Cana­da.

“We have his­tor­i­cal roots here, we have con­nec­tions from the past, but we have as­pi­ra­tions for the fu­ture as well,” he said.

Callan not­ed that the High Com­mis­sion was al­so es­tab­lish­ing a south­ern chap­ter of the Cana­da Club for Trinidad and To­ba­go to strength­en net­works among peo­ple who had stud­ied in Cana­da, had fam­i­ly there, con­duct­ed busi­ness with the coun­try or were in­ter­est­ed in de­vel­op­ing those con­nec­tions.

For lo­cal busi­ness­es, he said, those net­works could pro­vide ac­cess to knowl­edge, con­tacts and op­por­tu­ni­ties be­yond the for­mal work of the High Com­mis­sion.

The grow­ing com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ship comes as the two coun­tries al­so seek to strength­en ed­u­ca­tion­al ties.

Callan said more than 32 Cana­di­an col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties are ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in an ed­u­ca­tion fair at the C3 Cen­tre on Oc­to­ber 24, pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion to stu­dents and fam­i­lies in­ter­est­ed in study­ing in Cana­da.

He said Cana­di­an in­sti­tu­tions were par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­est­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go stu­dents be­cause of the qual­i­ty of ap­pli­cants.

The High Com­mis­sion­er said rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Cana­di­an uni­ver­si­ties had told him that de­spite Trinidad and To­ba­go’s rel­a­tive­ly small pop­u­la­tion, they con­sid­ered it worth­while to spend time re­cruit­ing stu­dents here be­cause of the qual­i­ty of ap­pli­cants.

The busi­ness and in­vest­ment push was wel­comed by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Michael Dowlath, who said in­vest­ment in tech­nol­o­gy, ed­u­ca­tion and trade would be im­por­tant ar­eas for stronger col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Dowlath said Trinidad and To­ba­go al­ready had long­stand­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al and ed­u­ca­tion­al links with Cana­da and ex­pressed in­ter­est in de­vel­op­ing stronger part­ner­ships for young peo­ple in South Trinidad and the wider coun­try.