Trinidad and To­ba­go's diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ship with Pana­ma was cel­e­brat­edear­li­er this month at Queen’s Hall, Port of Spain.

A cock­tail re­cep­tion was held at the venue to com­mem­o­rate the 32nd an­niver­sary of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween the coun­tries.

The event saw sig­nif­i­cant rep­re­sen­ta­tion of both cul­tures as mem­bers of the Shell In­vaders Steel Or­ches­tra and Panamá Folk­lore En­sem­ble took turns show­cas­ing el­e­ments of each coun­try.

The groups would then take the stage to­geth­er, mar­ry­ing el­e­ments of T&T via the steel pan mu­sic and the tra­di­tion­al dance rou­tines of the En­sem­ble be­fore guests were ush­ered out to the re­cep­tion area.

Ayesha Whar­ton, deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (Ag.) at the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, who ad­dressed the event on be­half of Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, not­ed Pana­ma was the first Cen­tral Amer­i­can coun­try that es­tab­lished an em­bassy in T&T.

She al­so added that the coun­try share sig­nif­i­cant cul­tur­al ties.

"Our re­la­tion­ship tran­scends more than the po­lit­i­cal and diplo­mat­ic. We al­so share the priv­i­lege of nur­tur­ing cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal ties that are built on over three decades of a for­ward-think­ing friend­ship," she said.

She added the coun­try al­so had a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic con­nec­tion not­ing that lo­cal en­tre­pre­neurs had grow­ing in­ter­est in the Cen­tral Amer­i­can coun­try.

She said, "The long­stand­ing and mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ship be­tween Pana­ma and Trinidad and To­ba­go has been built on trade, man­u­fac­tur­ing, in­vest­ment and en­er­gy ex­changes. Recog­nis­ing the con­tin­u­ous­ly grow­ing in­ter­est of lo­cal en­tre­pre­neurs and in­vestors in the eco­nom­ic hub of Pana­ma, Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains com­mit­ted to deep­en­ing com­mer­cial en­gage­ment, and to cre­ate three new eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties for the mu­tu­al ben­e­fit of our peo­ples and the wider Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean re­gion."

A key fix­ture on the lo­cal cal­en­dar for such en­gage­ment is the An­nu­al Trade and In­vest­ment Con­fer­ence (TIC) in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the 27th edi­tion of which will oc­cur from Ju­ly 9 to 11, 2026, Whar­ton not­ed.