Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (Doma) president Gregory Aboud is warning the People’s Partnership Government to be cautious of trading with neighbouring Venezuela since that country is obviously cash strapped.
He was responding to a plan by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to start a mechanism for commodity sharing between the two countries.
In announcing the arrangement, Persad-Bissessar said the proposal was at the planning stages and T&T recognised a monitoring mechanism would be key to its success.
But in response to that, Aboud said it was important the T&T took into account Venezuela’s current economic situation.
“We feel that it is prudent to be on alert when dealing with countries that are cash strapped because of their own failed models and who now want to trade in commodities because of that shortage of cash,” he told the T&T Guardian in a phone interview.
“The concept of bartering from government to government is an area where great caution should be employed, since major international news agencies are reporting that the Venezuelan President has been seeking help from many countries abroad,” he noted.
He added that T&T was also itself not in the best position to provide such help at this time and such a bartering agreement may cause unwanted exposure to the country.
“It seems rather interesting that one of the items listed for barter is tissue paper made in T&T, since this seems to corroborate news that even toilet paper is scarce in Venezuela,” Aboud said.
Saying Doma had noted Persad-Bissessar’s statements with interest, Aboud described the Venezuelan economy as similar to T&T regarding it heavy reliance on natural resources but he said there were glaring political issues with could not be ignored.
“We, however, cannot ignore some of the glaring differences which are occurring in recent times and particularly the type of violations which are occurring in the political process, whereby those expressing views which are different to the Venezuelan government are being jailed in record numbers,” Aboud said.
He said the political and economic model which was being pursued in Venezuela seemed unable to teach T&T anything about the welfare of this country’s citizens, since it was well known that current conditions in Venezuela were extremely difficult to its ordinary citizens.
He noted Venezuela was experiencing an inflation rate that was now among the highest in the world, chronic shortages in basic food items and medicine and a crime and murder rate that was also the worst in the world.
“We completely understand that our Government will want to see where common interests might exist between Venezuela and T&T but at the same time we wish to express the view that these initiatives should be filled with caution,” Aboud urged.