MINISTER of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator AJ Nicholson, lashed out at local critics of Jamaica’s trade imbalance with Trinidad and Tobago on Friday, urging them to “stop quarrelling with Trinidad”.

“Stop quarrelling with Trinidad. Port-of-Spain is about their business, we are supposed to be about our business,” Senator Nicholson told the Senate on Friday.

The minister specifically pointed out Opposition spokesman of Industry, Commerce and Energy, Gregory Mair, stating that “every time he gets up to speak (in Parliament) he is quarrelling with Trinidad”.

“What we have to do is deal with improving the standard of living of our people,” he stated, suggesting that the country is better off engaging with the BRIC trio of Brazil, China and India.

“That is the basket in which we have to put our eggs, at this point in time. We will need to do more to engage those developing countries, instead of belly aching about Trinidad, morning, noon and night, quarrelling with Trinidad,” Nicholson added.

He said that trade was the key to growth and development, but that Jamaica would not achieve development without growth that involves the “lower echelons” of the society.

“Growth in Jamaica can and must be facilitated through South/South co-operation. That’s the only way with the present state of things,” he said, referring to Michael Manley’s and Julius Nyerere’s involvement in the 1970s process of seeking a new international economic order, whose time, Nicholson suggested, has now come.

“This is the time for it … Jamaica espouses South/South co-operation and we have taken steps to strengthen our engagement with key developing countries to advance trading opportunities,” he said.

But, Nicholson was speaking on a motion moved by Senator Christopher Tufton, seeking to have the government give priority to an IMF growth strategy, and the opposition spokesman felt that the minister had unfairly inserted the South/South/Trinidad issues into a discussion about Jamaica’s IMF agreement.

“As the minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, I can understand his urgency, but the motion is pointing specifically to our IMF agreement,” Dr Tufon said.

He pointed out that his resolution was quite specific in terms of the requirements of the IMF and the other multilateral partners, such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development (IDB) Bank, to facilitate things like structural reform for economic expansion in order for the country to be able to live within its means.

“The motion speaks specifically to that, and it is important to focus on that point, but he strayed somewhat from the focus of the motion. The issue that bothers and concerns Jamaican stakeholders is, how do we get the (IMF) plans implemented,” Dr Tufton argued.

“I think that what Jamaica needs now, in relation to this four-year programme, is to prescribe some specific guidelines, with measurements, to get the plans in effect,” he insisted.

Eventually, both sides agreed to an amended resolution, supporting a call for the government’s growth strategy to identify critical sectors for high impact job creation; set timelines for reducing bureaucracy to improve efficiency and encourage a changed business culture in both the public and private sector; and reporting to the country, midway between each quarterly test of the Extended Fund Facility agreement between the government and the IMF, on the progress of the economic activities. The motion was approved unanimously.

Jamaica recently imposed duties on the importation of lubricants from Trinidad in another round of trade wars between the CARICOM neighbours.

Jamaica’s Industry Minister Anthony Hylton, said that he exercised his ministerial authority to secure the transfer of $184 million to the Consolidated Fund, after the Trinidad and Tobago government failed to respond to his request for clarification of the origin of the import. The lubricant was suspected to have originated in Venezuela, and exported to Jamaica by the state-owned Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (Petrotrin), in breach of the CARICOM Rules of Origin of duty free imports.

A US$1 billion negative balance of trade between Jamaica and Trinidad, attributed primarily to government subsidies in Trinidad, has been the basis of a continuing debate involving Jamaican exporters supported by the opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), seeking a more extreme response from the government.