Director of CARICOM CSME Unit Urges Trinidad and Tobago to Improve Trade Balance with Barbados

Director of the CARICOM Single Market (CSME) Unit Leo Titus Preville has called for a more favourable balance of trade by Trinidad and Tobago with Barbados.

Addressing the opening ceremony of a visiting trade mission from the twin-island republic at the Rockley Beach Resort on Thursday, he revealed that between 2018 and last year, Trinidad imported about US$23.2 million of goods from Barbados.

“That figure should be higher as the date also indicates that there has been a decline in imports from Barbados by Trinidad and Tobago from a high of US$30.4 million in 2018, to a low of US$24.7 million in 2022,” Preville disclosed.

The CSME official is therefore suggesting the need for greater growth among Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries, especially with respect to job creation which must be supported by the movement of CARICOM nationals.

He also provided data on the use of the Skills Certificate to show the level of movement of CARICOM nationals to work.

“For the period 2013 to 2018, the CSME Unit has assessed that on average, approximately 680 CARICOM nationals from one member state move to another member state in the Community on an annual basis…using the Skills Certificate,” Preville highlighted, adding that this number might be understated since there is no skills certificate regime within the sub-regional Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

In the feature address, Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Sandra Husbands called on the region to work together to slash or eliminate the $3.3 billion in goods imported from extra-regional sources when those same items are being produced in the Caribbean.

“The question we have to ask is why are we importing those $3.3 billion when we already have those goods produced in the region? And this is where the issue of standards [comes in], this is where the issue of having a digital marketplace so we know where those products are. This is why we need to solve the issue of logistics, this is why we need to remove the barriers,” Husbands told the gathering that included members of the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“This is why we need to have partnerships where we are not several little people producing things, but coming together…doing joint investments where we can build scale so the unit cost can come down.”

The minister argued that if Barbados and other regional partners are not prepared to do that for themselves, “who do we think is going to come to help us feed our children when we become less and less competitive?”