Online Bookstore:
Speaker:The Honourable Basdeo Panday, Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Date: January 21, 2000
Occasion: Remarks at the Reception hosted by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to extend New Year Greetings to the Diplomatic Corps
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:
I have come to look forward to this Annual New Year's Reception hosted by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in honour of the Diplomatic Corps resident in Trinidad and Tobago.
Permit me to extend a warm welcome to His Excellency, Mr Ivan Ogando, Charg� d'Affaires of the Dominican Republic, who only this week took up residence in Port of Spain.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
A fundamental objective of Trinidad and Tobago's foreign policy over the last four years has been the diversification, expansion, and deepening of our diplomatic and commercial relations on every continent in order to create increasing prosperity, economic opportunity, investment and jobs for our citizens at home.
During my Government's first term, we fashioned a new European agenda with revitalised bilateral relations with our traditional partners like the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands.
We have now developed for the first time active bilateral programmes with Italy, Ireland and Spain.
We signed a number of agreements during the historic visit of the Prime Minister of Spain, Jos� Mar�a Aznar to Port of Spain in July 1999.
We have appointed a number of Honorary Consuls in Germany, Sweden and Norway, all of whom have already paid familiarisation visits to Trinidad and Tobago and some of whom have led investment missions to this country.
We also plan, when resources permit, to open new embassies in other capitals in Europe.
We have also established diplomatic relations with countries of Eastern Europe including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, the Ukraine and Slovenia.
We look forward to the early establishment of diplomatic and trade ties with all of Europe.
At the multilateral level, as a member of the African Caribbean and Pacific Group, we are in the process of intensive negotiations with the European Union for a new post-Lom� arrangement.
So far we have been successful in reaching an agreement for a roll-over of the present preferential arrangement for a period of eight years.
We already have an agreement for enhanced market access for our products under a new arrangement.
This will make Europe's market of over three hundred and seventy million consumers available to our exporters.
We have also had a continuing focus on Africa.
We have maintained our close ties with Nigeria and look forward to deepening our relationship now that democracy has returned to that country.
We have fostered closer ties with South Africa through high level visits, participation in an investment mission, the appointment of an Honorary Consul and the development of a bilateral agenda for the future.
We were honoured by official visits by the Presidents of Ghana and Botswana which produced bilateral agendas between Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana and Botswana, respectively.
With our partners in CARICOM, we participated in the historic meeting in South Africa between CARICOM and the Southern African Development Community, which was intended to bring the countries of these regions into closer economic, cultural and political co-operation.
Our African focus will continue and will embrace other countries of that great continent.
Our ties with India have also been strengthened. My own visit to India in 1996 and Prime Minister Vajpayee's visit to Trinidad and Tobago last year, have brought the two countries closer together through the signing of a number of agreements for economic, diplomatic, cultural and technical collaboration.
We have also signed a number of new agreements with the People's Republic of China.
I am pleased to confirm new energy in our relationship with China is symbolised by the fact that we are once again selling asphalt to that great country.
We have also gained significant support from China for the development of our Small Business Sector when, only last month, we signed an agreement for this purpose.
We have also taken action to strengthen our ties with New Zealand, Singapore and Japan.
In our own hemisphere, our relationships with our partners in the Americas are deeper and stronger than at any other time in history.
There is no doubt that our partnership with the United States has never been stronger, with more investment flows, increased trade and co-operation in security and judicial matters.
It should also be remembered that we played a pivotal role in the historic Summit of Caribbean Heads of State and Governments and the President of the United States of America which produced the Bridgetown Accord as a blueprint for a modern partnership between the United States and the Caribbean.
We also have stronger ties with Canada whose Foreign Minister paid an official visit only last week and with whom we have agreed a programme for growing alliances in economic cooperation, education and environment matters.
We have hosted a number of trade and investment missions from Canada.
We have already appointed additional Honorary Consuls in many separate provinces, the aim being to have a strategic presence in all the provinces of Canada, with a view to promoting trade, investment and tourism flows.
Our ties with Latin America have also been a great success story. There has been a flurry of activity with Mexico, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, among others.
We have signed several bilateral agreements.
High level visits have taken place and trade has reached unprecedented levels.
We have succeeded with our CARICOM partners in significantly advancing the integration process between CARICOM and Central America, as we proceed towards a free trade agreement and greater economic integration between these our sub-regions.
Trinidad and Tobago signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the MERCOSUR and this provides a solid platform for future economic ties with the Southern Cone of the South American Continent involving Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, market of over two hundred million people.
We have of course been very active in the Caribbean family.
I have just completed a term of office as Chairman of CARICOM during which we advanced the CARICOM agenda in particular the Single Market and the Economy.
We in Trinidad and Tobago have also placed great emphasis on our individual relations with each member of our CARICOM family and this has resulted in high level visits and an intensive programme of bilateral activity with Barbados, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis and Suriname.
We will be pursuing a similar course with all our other CARICOM partners.
We have appointed seven Honorary Consuls in CARICOM countries including Belize and Haiti, the aim being to deepen the bilateral relations between ourselves and our individual CARICOM partners.
Our work with the wider Caribbean, especially with Cuba, The Netherlands Antilles and the Dominican Republic is also a source of satisfaction to me. We have reached historic levels in our activity with these countries.
A visit to Havana by our Foreign Minister, the Honourable Ralph Maraj, resulted in a multiplicity of agreements being signed and new trade levels between the two countries.
The increased diplomatic and commercial activity between Santo Domingo and Port of Spain has produced the opening of an Embassy of the Dominican Republic for the first time in the history of our relations.
The visit of the Prime Minister of The Netherlands Antilles to Port of Spain represented a memorable milestone in our relations which has already produced significant diplomatic and economic activity.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Trinidad and Tobago continues to place great importance on our multilateral participation and co-operation.
We feel that all countries, especially smaller nations, have the need to join hands with like-minded partners in the pursuit of a just and humane global civilization.
We have been doing this with unrelenting consistency with our CARICOM partners.
Towards the end of the last century, I became very heartened by the signs of an emerging sensitivity to the plight of the poor and underdeveloped in the international environment.
Today, there is growing acceptance of the fact that the idea of a level playing field is a myth and that the plight of the small vulnerable economies in particular, and that of the developing world as a whole, must be taken into consideration in charting an improved international economic arrangement.
We see this happening at the United Nations under the Small Island Developing States Programme as well as in the FTAA process which has accepted, after strong CARICOM persuasion, the need for a special regime for the small economies of the hemisphere.
At the recent Commonwealth Summit, we adopted a landmark study and programme of action for small vulnerable states which was done after consultations among the Commonwealth Secretariat, the World Bank and the IMF.
Trinidad and Tobago has consistently joined the debate on globalisation pointing to the advantages and opportunities it has brought and also the havoc it can and has produced through marginalisation of the developing world and the widening of the divide between rich and poor in and among nations.
This is a major international struggle upon which we are embarked and I am proud that we too have been in the forefront of this noble cause.
We have constantly called for solidarity among the countries of the developing world and I am pleased that at last there is both a strengthened togetherness and an emerging concrete programme of action.
We see this in the fora of the United Nations, the OAS, the Commonwealth, the ACP and the Non-Aligned Movement.
We saw the power of solidarity in Seattle recently and we are now in a stronger position to shape the World Trade Organisation into a body that would serve the interest of all, rich and poor, large and small.
We look forward to a consolidation of solidarity at the South Summit this year in Havana when the developing world comes together to take advantage of an international environment more propitious than ever to the advancement of our cause.
It is gradually being realised that globalisation has made us more interdependent that ever before and that neither wealth nor military might would insulate any country or group of countries from the ill-effects of three-quarters of the world living in poverty.
The time for a North-South dialogue is now. Without this we will continue to be plagued by environmental degradation, drug trafficking, debilitating poverty, illegal immigration and terrorism, among other ills, all of which together create great pessimism in international circles.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Meaningful international co-operation is the way to broaden the opportunities for all peoples to share in the potential for global prosperity,
It is the way to work towards eradicating the human, social and economic degradation of poverty,
It is the way to build a world that holds out the promise of peace and security for future generations.
We must 'seize the day' at the dawn of this new century, and work resolutely in the coming months to make a future for ourselves together in our common humanity.
We owe this to our children.
In concluding, Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to express the Government's gratitude to the resident diplomatic corps and to the countries you represent for the unfailing goodwill and frequent support which you give to the people and Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in so many matters of consequence to our countries.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Our 2000 get-together comes shortly after dramatic events which took place at the time of the meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle.
We know now that all nations large and small could not help but hear the sound of certain trumpets which cannot be ignored.
All of us in this gathering have a vital duty to ensure that the voices of all nations are hear and acted upon in re-ordering the new global economic order.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
May I now invite you to lift your glasses in toast to Their Excellencies of the Diplomatic Corps in Trinidad and Tobago, and to the continued conduct of friendly relations among our countries for the benefit of the peoples we serve, and in whose interests we have gathered here today.
I thank you. And may God bless you all.