JAMAICA/T&T ECONOMIC RUMBLES
THE need for a new choreography in the trade and economic partnership between Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago has been urged from two different perspectives in Kingston and Port-of-Spain. On Tuesday, the Jamaica Gleaner editorially welcomed what it views as a “new and interesting tune” emanating from the government of Trinidad and Tobago, and specifically its Finance Minister Winston Dookeran.
Trinidad and Tobago, like Barbados, are the two dominant intra-regional trading partners of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The assumption, therefore, is that both would have an enlightened interest in ensuring success in CARICOM’ efforts to overcome lingering problems in achieving its primary goal of a single market transformed into a seamless regional economy.
Jamaica has been complaining, for some time now, against claimed disadvantages in its trade relations with Trinidad and Tobago – under the previous administrations of the People’s National Movement (PNM) as well as what currently prevails with the People’s Partnership Government (PPG) in Port-of-Spain.
It was, therefore, not surprising that the Gleaner should have moved with some alacrity this past Tuesday in welcoming Finance Minister Dookeran’s comparative “sunny” assurance for a new and positive approach towards regional economic integration, as indicated in his presentation last week of T&T’s 2012 budget.
In commenting on what it perceives as the Finance Minister’s “seemingly shifting attitude to Caribbean economic integration”, the newspaper took comfort in the disclosure by him that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s administration would “review the architecture of the Caribbean integration process and seek to build new projects integrating the natural mineral resources of the region…”
Further, that his government “will initiate discussions with Caribbean countries to identify a new integration framework to facilitate the process and to include the larger countries of the hemisphere”.
Good thinking on the part of Finance Minister Dookeran. Good assurance coming from the government in Port-of-Spain. Good news for CARICOM partners, particularly like Jamaica and Guyana which have the natural mineral resources to help make a reality of the envisaged “new architecture of Caribbean integration” alluded to the Finance Minister, a former Governor of the Trinidad and Tobago Central Bank.
HUGE TRADE DEFICIT
The assurance and articulated vision on the way forward for T&T as a key partner in CARICOM, would, of course, have to be followed by relevant action. As the old saying goes, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”.
A persistent huge deficit in Jamaica’s trade with T&T is a major area for resolution in any new meaningful “architecture” in regional economic integration.
As mentioned by the Gleaner, “the minerals that Trinidad and Tobago has are primarily natural gas, which it has used to underpin its industrial base, making it the key manufacturer in Caricom. Indeed, Trinidad and Tobago’s export of energy and other manufactured products to Jamaica has meant that in recent years, Kingston has run a trade deficit of nearly of US$1 billion annually with Port-of-Spain…”
For the first five months of this year, Jamaica’s deficit with CARICOM as a whole was estimated at US$452 million, almost all of which are accounted for by T&T. In the case of Barbados, its intra-regional exports within CARICOM is estimated to be at least forty (40) percent of global trade.
The message seems clear enough that the more developed economies in CARICOM simply have to demonstrate their sensitivity to the unsustainability of weak economies purchasing of goods and services; consequently, the need for creative initiatives to help steer “CARICOM” out of the rough waters in which it is afloat with respect to key areas of regional development
Last year, when he was still comparatively new in his cabinet post as Minister of Trade and Industry, Stephen Cadiz felt constrained to publicly criticise “some persons (no names called) with other agendas” who were pushing efforts to get Jamaica to boycott products from T&T.
By last month, however, he was revealing quite an encouraging pragmatic attitude, when he told local media that the impending departure of Prime Minister Bruce Golding would not affect trade between the two countries, and pointed to a  “good relationship” he had established with his Jamaican counterpart, Christopher Tufton.
Currently, Minister Cadiz is reported to be working on arrangements for a trade mission to visit Jamaica and feels that with the merger of Air Jamaica with Caribbean Airline this could further promote better opportunities to enhance trade relations.
Nevertheless, such ‘soft’ initiatives could hardly be what Finance Minister Winston Dookeran may have had in mind when he spoke last week to the need for “a new architecture of the Caribbean’s economic integration process.”