Colombian Investors seek Business Opportunities in Trinidad and Tobago

Colombian Investors seek Business Opportunities in Trinidad and Tobago

InvesTT and ProColombia partner to host a webinar aimed at exploring trade and investment opportunities between Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago.

The pandemic has not deterred the Colombian business community from seeking trade and investment opportunities in Trinidad and Tobago. This was ascertained during a webinar hosted by InvesTT and ProColombia on 1st September to a targeted group of 150 participants from the Colombian private sector. 
Given travel restrictions due to closed borders internationally, webinars are the new normal for the national investment promotion agency whose mission is to attract, facilitate and retain foreign investment into the country.

“We were excited to collaborate with our colleagues at ProColombia who gave us the opportunity to target a solid cross-section of prospects in many of our prioritized sectors. We are always eager to work with similar agencies as this opens the door for businesses in both countries to begin engaging in conversations that can eventually lead to beneficial partnerships or joint ventures.”
Sekou Alleyne, President, InvesTT
During the webinar, Alleyne presented business opportunities in 4 major growth areas – Electricity Intensive Manufacturing, Logistics, Offshore Transhipment and Business Process Outsourcing. He highlighted the specific benefits of investment in each area, pointing out that InvesTT would be a key partner in the navigation of the local business landscape, access to industry data, facilitation of regulatory approvals and engagement with local business counterparts.

Webinar attendees were also keenly interested in tourism infrastructure, software development, creative services, education and environmental investment project opportunities. Project incentives, tariffs, trade agreements and access to foreign exchange were at the top of the list of the business concerns addressed by InvesTT during the presentation. 

Senator the Honourable Paula Gopee-Scoon, Minister of Trade and Industry expressed her exuberance at the potential of the webinar to bolster trade and investment relations between Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago. She highlighted the amendments made in 1998 to the CARICOM-Colombia Agreement on Trade, Economic and Technical Cooperation, making note of the provision of duty free access for a specified list of Colombian products to CARICOM MDCs and the expansion of the list of CARICOM products granted access to Colombian markets. In her remarks, she stated that “discussions are ongoing for the negotiation of the Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investments Agreement which will provide a greater level of confidence on the part of investors of both countries in pursuing investment opportunities.” 

The Trinidad and Tobago/Colombia webinar is one of a series of virtual events to be hosted by InvesTT as it continues to nurture a healthy pipeline of investment leads while mitigating the challenges of face-to-face outreach to investors posed by the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic.