Speaking at the Guyana Trade and Investment Exposition in Port of Spain earlier last month, Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo invited Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning and the business community to invest in his country which was "rich in natural resources [but] was starved in capital."
Twelve years ago, in an earlier term of office, Prime Minister Manning had attempted to launch the 'Manning Initiative' to bring Barbados, Guyana and Trinidad into closer economic co-operation. But although Guyana's Cabinet agreed then to enter discussions on the 'Initiative,' there was little enthusiasm and the effort eventually petered out.
Nevertheless, Trinidad, an island slightly smaller than Guyana's Pomeroon-Supenaam Region, has transformed itself into the biggest economic powerhouse in the Eastern Caribbean, increasingly dominating, rather than cooperating with, its sluggish southern sister, Guyana. A comparison between the two economies would show how far the two have travelled since independence and the development gap that has opened between them.
Less than an hour away by aeroplane, Trinidadian entrepreneurs have pioneered the penetration and revitalisation of Guyana's sclerotic economy.
Trinidadianisation was evident in the taking over of Guyana's two biggest banks - the ailing National Bank of Industry and Commerce and the anaemic Guyana National Co-operative Bank. Trinidadian capital owns, or has interest in, Neal and Massy; Ansa Mc Al; Royal Castle; Caribbean Container Inc; Geddes Grant and others. BWIA, Trinidad's national airline, is the main means by which Guyanese travel overseas. Engineering companies - DIPCON and Seereeram Bros - are ubiquitous on the coastland. Guyanese ministers wend their way to Trinidadian laboratories, health-care corporations and hospitals when they fall ill. Supermarket shelves and freezers are flooded with Trinidadian manufactured goods and processed foods - beverages, clothing, preserved meats.
Trinidad has had a patronising relationship with Guyana for decades. Its legendary Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams strenuously strove to encourage Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan to cooperate in the turbulent 1960s, but without success. Dr Williams persevered to sponsor and host two of Guyana's most important post-independence international agreements - the significantly-named 'Protocol of Port of Spain' with Venezuela, and the so-called 'Chagua-ramas Agreement' with Suriname, both in 1970. Williams also generously, almost irresponsibly, extended a petroleum credit facility to Guyana which resulted in the ballooning of this country's debt to Trinidad, part of which was written off only recently.
There is also transfusion at several other levels. In university education, for example, most Guyanese attorneys-at-law would have passed through the portals of Trinidad's Hugh Wooding Law School, and some of its diplomats, UWI's Institute of International Relations at St Augustine. Professionals such as academics, attorneys, accountants, architects, doctors, and engineers cooperate on numerous projects as can be seen in Guyanese attempts to imitate Trinidadian building codes and business practices. Trinidadian printeries print glossy annual reports and popular magazines for Guyana; its advertising agencies produce racy television commercials and posters for local corporations.
The similarity in the two countries' demographic structure has also been an important factor. Trinidadian Kaiso, Chutney and Soca music appeal to partygoers, and religious relations between Hindu and Muslim organisations reinforce economic and social contacts. Trinidad's UNC and Guyana's PPP have traditionally supported each other, with UNC leader Basdeo Panday confidently coming here to raise funds for his last election campaign among a familiar constituency.
As Guyana grew weaker, poorer and more unstable, it seems, Trinidad and Tobago has grown richer and stronger. If Mr Manning and his compatriots were to respond enthusiastically to President Jagdeo's invitation to invest, Guyanese could look forward to an intensification of the current Trinidadianisation.