Despite barriers, city eyes profit in Guatemala City partnership

SOMETHING BREWING: Gerardo Reyes, owner of the soon-to-open Chikondi Café in Central Falls, is excited about sister-city trade opportunities between Guatemala City and Providence, especially the coffee import process. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
SOMETHING BREWING: Gerardo Reyes, owner of the soon-to-open Chikondi Café in Central Falls, is excited about sister-city trade opportunities between Guatemala City and Providence, especially the coffee import process. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Gerardo Reyes is tired of dealing with middlemen.

“Trying to get my coffee from Guatemala is a long process. … We have to work with ports in New York, New Jersey and Florida,” said the owner of the soon-to-open Chikondi Café in Central Falls.

Reyes is hoping a new sister-city partnership between Providence and Guatemala City will make importing from the Central American nation smoother for Rhode Island businesses.

“In Providence, there [are] a lot of coffee shops and a lot of them sell Guatemalan coffee,” said Reyes, “if everything goes through, it’ll be much easier” to import the coffee.

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Signed by Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza on Oct. 12, the sister-city partnership was designed to increase commercial, tourist, cultural and educational ties between the capital cities.

According to the 2010 Census, the 11,930 Guatemalan Americans living in Providence, including the mayor, comprise 17.5 percent of the city’s 67,835 Hispanic American residents. Guatemalan Americans account for 6.7 percent of the city’s 178,000 residents.

“A big part of the reason why these channels were open and accessible is because I’m a Guatemalan American. Folks are very interested in building off that relationship,” Elorza said.

Cities across the Ocean State nurture, to varying degrees, such sister-city partnerships, including some that are decades old. But building lasting business or economic opportunities is especially challenging, say those involved, due to the distance between the communities, changing political leadership and inconsistent funding.

Last year, for example, Elorza signed a Cooperation and Friendship Agreement with representatives from Zhuhai, China. That same year Bryant University, in cooperation with the Beijing Institute of Technology at Zhuhaui, established a Bryant campus in the city.

Providence was looking to capitalize on the connection, seeing a new trade partner for Rhode Island seafood and a tourism exchange in Zhuhai.

But Mark Huang, director of economic development for Providence, says that a year later those plans are still on hold. The sister-city partnership is still awaiting approval from China’s central government that he hopes may come by the end of the year.

Zhuhai has expressed interest in the state’s health care and education industries, particularly Rhode Island School of Design, Huang says. And Huang believes there are synergies in technology and housing, as well as fisheries, oceanography and port activity.

Citing the distance between the two cities, Huang added, the best Providence can do in terms of encouraging economic trade is to “play matchmaker. … We can’t drive the business discussion to real agreements because that’s a business-to-business [decision].”

R.I. Commerce Corp. also played a “facilitating role, making introductions” for the Zhuhai agreement, said spokesman Matt Sheaff. The challenge, he said, is that “many pieces must fall into place for agreements of this kind to succeed.”

Washington, D.C.-based Sister Cities International is a nonprofit organization that establishes and strengthens such partnerships. There are currently 560 U.S. cities registered as SCI members (none from Rhode Island) and 15 international cities registered with the organization as well.

An SCI report, “Measures that Matter,” shows member organization and fellow nonprofit, Fort Worth Sister Cities International, helps the city rake in an annual $2.6 million economic impact and an annual flow of 500 visitors participating in cultural and educational exchanges from its eight sister-city partnerships.

Evidence of benefits from Rhode Island-based sister-city partnerships is mostly anecdotal.

In addition to Guatemala City, Providence’s City Archives has records of City Council resolutions linking the capital city with Niquinohomo, Nicaragua (1985), Praia, Cape Verde (1988), Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (2003) and Santo Domingo, again, along with Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic in 2015.

For each of Providence’s sister-city partnerships, Elorza trusts they will result in beneficial results – as long as they are defined by strong commitment.

“Sister-city agreements can be ceremonial or substantive and I’ve tried to focus on the substantive aspects, so we choose places where that relationship already exists,” he said. “[They] can go in so many different directions – perhaps a boost to tourism, new economic-development opportunities or an exchange of information and culture.”

EXCHANGE OF PEOPLE

Efforts to develop 19th-century trade opportunities between Japan and the United States led to one of the state’s oldest sister-city agreements, between Newport and Shimoda, Japan.

In 1854, Newport native Commodore Matthew C. Perry signed a treaty with Japanese representatives opening the country to international trade, said Lynn U. Ceglie, City Council member for Newport’s 2nd Ward and delegate member during two sister-city trips. Shimoda was one of the port cities U.S. vessels could access under the treaty.

Newport today has six sister-city partnerships, including the 1958 agreement with Shimoda, which Ceglie called the city’s “most important … because of the historic ties.” Rather than commercial trade links, the partnership’s most significant local benefit is in tourism, she says.

“There could be some products that go back and forth, but I really think the major commodity is an exchange of people,” she said.

In addition to Shimoda, Newport is paired with Imperia, Italy (1978), St. John, New Brunswick, Canada (1993), Skiathos, Greece (1996), Kinsale, Ireland (1998) and Ponta Delgada, Portugal (2002).

Jeanne-Marie Napolitano, Newport’s mayor, said the Irish, Italian and Japanese partnerships have succeeded because of tourism and education exchanges. But strong economic ties are lacking because her office doesn’t have the resources to aid that type of exchange.

“We don’t have the time or the wherewithal to follow up,” she said. “We’ve been able to nourish these three, they’re about all we can handle.”

The city annually receives a $30,000 stipend from Discover Newport to fund sister-city-related programming, but it’s not enough, said Napolitano, and city officials are often left to pay for expenses with personal funds.

Napolitano said the city has been approached by Brest, France; Oslo, Norway; and the Bahamas to partner – but she turned them down due to the cost of programming.

Newport’s sister-city partnerships pre-date Erin Donovan-Boyle’s tenure as executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce, but she echoed Napolitano’s sentiments.

“I’m a year and a half into my position and what I’ve seen, directly, is the exchange of ideas,” she said. “Certainly the cultural and social aspects are fantastic building blocks to establish business relationships … [but] as far as economic development or direct business [impact] – I see that at the beginning stages,” she said.

She said many of the city’s annual festivities, such as the Black Ships Festival that celebrates the link with Shimoda, have a “direct impact on [the] hospitality and tourism industry, locally.”

One business that has benefited from ties to Kinsale is Newport’s La Forge Casino and Restaurant. Run by Peter Crowley, the restaurant once participated in a chef exchange with Kinsale, which he called “the gourmet capital of Europe.”

The chef exchange increased business for La Forge, especially during the off-season, said Crowley.

“It was a boost because of the amount of Irish in Newport,” he said.

But when Ireland’s economy “went downhill” in 2008, the chef exchange disappeared.

“Because of the cost … the restaurant end of it got knocked into the background and sunk,” he said.

Some local businesses want to revive the program, but the effort is “in its infant stages,” said Crowley.

Robert Billington, Blackstone Valley Tourism Council president, says sister-city partnerships only develop relevance when companies and community members, such as Crowley, spearhead the cause.

“Some years things click, some years not much happens at all – that’s the life of a sister city,” he said.

Billington believes local interest must be bottom-up, not top-down, for success – and that’s how the tourism council paired with England’s Amber Valley. Pawtucket is home to Slater Mill, a historic textile mill founded by English-born industrialist Samuel Slater.

In 1992, Billington wanted to know more about the man behind the mill and went searching.

“All we knew was that it was England [where Slater was born] and that wasn’t good enough,” he said.

Over the next two years, with the help of English organizations, it was determined Slater hailed from Belper, England and a blue plaque, a distinguished U.K. recognition, was placed on his home.

Billington says there’s been some local tourism benefits from the connection.

“If the visitor center is open, and convenient, they’ll drop in,” to make the connection, he said.

A one-off commercial benefit resulted from the council connecting Pawtucket’s Foolproof Brewing Co. and Amber Ales of Lower Pilsley, England.

Nick Garrison, Foolproof’s president and founder, collaborated on a recipe with Amber Ale’s brewer, Peter Hounsell, when he was in Rhode Island with a delegation. Hounsell later produced the recipe and tourism-council representatives sampled the brew during a later trip.

Garrison hopes to collaborate on additional brews. “We’re looking at international opportunities … so trans-Atlantic relationships have a lot of appeal,” he said.

Billington thinks the upcoming 25th anniversary of the partnership could lead to delegation trips to and from England.

“It’s all about connecting people,” he said.

Pawtucket Mayor Donald R. Grebien, whose city also benefits from the Belper pairing, as well as an almost 2-year-old arrangement with Arjona, Columbia, agrees.

“They’re relevant, but the relevance has changed,” from a business perspective, he said, to a cultural understanding.

When it comes to embracing different cultures, in a community as diverse as Pawtucket, he said, actions speak louder than words.

Government, however, “has a level where it gets stuck,” he said. “We build relationships, but we don’t necessarily push them down into the community.”

STRONG TIES

Elorza thinks Providence’s agreement with Guatemala City will benefit Rhode Island’s capital city because of the Guatemalan government’s strong connection to the city through the Guatemalan Consulate General of New England, established in Providence in 2007. The consulate represents the Guatemalan government regionally and helps resolve bureaucratic issues for Guatemalan citizens and those looking to visit or trade locally.

“Guatemalan officials are familiar with Providence and with that familiarity comes a lot of facility in building” future partnerships, he said.

Consular General Jorge Figueroa sees the match as a perfect fit because of the large Guatemalan population in the city and their tendency to send money back and forth.

Figueroa’s goal is to encourage money transfers between the two cities to be invested in local economies. Right now, he said, “they’re using it for personal purposes rather than opening a business.”

In 2015, Elorza and a Rhode Island delegation visited Guatemala City to explore possible connections between the two capital cities. He said tourism, food, education and port trade top the list of conceivable economic and cultural exchanges through the partnership.

“There are really dynamic changes happening with ports right now,” he said. “Providence is already an international city, and I see the ports as a great way for jobs and economic development” to grow.

According to the World Bank, Guatemala’s population was 16.34 million in 2015, supported by a gross domestic product of $63.79 billion USD and a GDP growth rate of 4.1 percent.

As Reyes noted, coffee is one of the most popular Guatemalan products imported by the U.S., along with bananas, fruits, vegetables and various commercial goods.

A Guatemala native, Reyes moved to Rhode Island more than a decade ago after studying tourism and has helped develop the partnership between the two cities.

One problem he has seen is that neither country is familiar with the tourism industry of the other.

Reyes would like to see direct flights between Warwick’s T.F. Green Airport and Guatemala City, to improve tourism ties.

He also hopes the partnership will help Rhode Island importers work with Guatemalan coffee growers.

“We can pay a better price and we will get a better product,” he said. •

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1 COMMENT

  1. flights from here to Guatemala City is a great idea. Currently, most connections from Providence involve 2 stops. One could always go to Boston for one stops, but that does nothing for our economy and it does not show the traffic as originating in Providence, but in Boston. Also, fares are nearly twice as high from PVD as compared to BOS.