Trinidad and Tobago’s protectionist ways

Now that it has become clear that Guyana is well on the way towards beginning to build an oil and gas industry, Trinidad and Tobago has done nothing to conceal its intention to take advantage of what it clearly sees as significant investment opportunities arising out of the various services that it is positioned to provide given its own considerable experience in and knowledge of the industry.

At the outset, we must acknowledge that both from the standpoint of Trinidad and Tobago’s generosity towards Guyana in times past and having regard to our common membership of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), there is no reason why potential investors from the Twin-Island Republic should not be afforded such oil and gas-related investment opportunities as they might find here.

Of course the point should be made that the Trinidad and Tobago private sector already possesses a considerable investment toehold in Guyana courtesy of the presence here of Republic Bank, the single largest commercial bank in the jurisdiction as well as food, beverage and services companies like ANSA McAl and Massy.

As it happens and insofar as reciprocity is concerned Trinidad and Tobago has been less than forthcoming on access to its markets by manufactured and agricultural goods originating in Guyana. In more recent times Port of Spain has imposed aggressive restrictions on the entry of coconut water and poultry products from Guyana and has also put in place measures that pose an inconvenience to our honey exports to third countries in the region.

Here in Guyana, meanwhile, local businesses have long been ‘feeling the pinch’ arising out of the restrictions so that the preponderance of Trinidad and Tobago-manufactured products on local supermarket shelves in circumstances where reciprocity is virtually non-existent has, for some time, been an issue.

Mind you, one expects that the importation of goods from one country into another must be subject to various qualifying requirements, a point made by the authorities in Port of Spain in relation to coconut water from Guyana, though it must be said that setting that consideration aside the posture in Port of Spain towards the single market disposition to which we are told CARICOM member countries aspire, has not been particularly evident.

Truth be told, Guyana is not the only CARICOM member country that has had concerns about the twin-island Republic’s disposition to unfettered intra-regional trade. There have been quite a few rather pointed face-offs between

Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica on the issue of market access in relatively recent times. Indeed, Jamaican manufacturers are on record openly advocating the aggressive reciprocation of Trinidad and Tobago’s protectionist posture.

While it appears that this month’s opening of the second Massy megastore in Guyana makes allowances for access by ‘qualifying’ local goods to its shelves, concerns persist about the existing imbalance in trade between the two countries. Local small agro processors (the country’s major Business Support Organizations have not been nearly vocal enough on this issue) for example, in their keenness to expand their markets beyond local outlets (even though it has to be said that some of them still have important product presentation criteria to satisfy before they can make more credible cases for export market access) are becoming increasingly vociferous on the issue. Some of them have related what they say have been discouraging experiences in seeking to secure access to the Trinidad and Tobago market.

The Stabroek News has already commented on the recent rather sudden ‘sitting down’ between delegations from Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, in Port of Spain to discuss what has been described as “market access issues related to the export of agricultural products from Guyana to Trinidad and Tobago.” Indeed, there is good reason to suspect that this development may well have arisen from Port of Spain’s realization that given the keenness of Trinidadian businesses to secure a piece of the oil and gas-related ‘action’ in Guyana, our protestations over their protectionist disposition can no longer be brushed aside. Perhaps not surprisingly, little has been said up until now about the outcomes of the discourses between the “technical experts from Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago” whom the Foreign Ministry statement said participated in a “bilateral meeting to discuss market access issues related to the export of agricultural products from Guyana to Trinidad and Tobago,” which is really another way of saying, or at least so it seems, that the issue of Port of Spain’s protectionist posture is now being taken more seriously here in Georgetown.

Mind you, all of this is a matter of conjecture since the statement issued by our Ministry of Foreign Affairs simply says that the two sides had “agreed to find resolutions to the issues discussed,” a mind-bogglingly vague pronouncement in the circumstances. In fact, in diplomatic parlance, that could well mean that we will witness an interminable wait for another round of talks, perhaps in Georgetown, sometime down the road. We believe the present convergence of circumstances demands that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs provide, sooner rather than later, a much greater measure of enlightenment on such concrete understandings as may have been reached in Port of Spain.

Even if no one wants to see the emergence of escalating ill-will between the two CARICOM countries arising out of Trinidad and Tobago’s prevailing unacceptable protectionist policies, there is nothing wrong with making Port of Spain aware that, these days, we do have some measure of leverage in the matter, after all.