PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

An­gos­tu­ra has re­leased a spe­cial rum for the 50th an­niver­sary of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com).

The rum, called An­gos­tu­ra Trib­ute Cari­com Re­lease, will be giv­en to Cari­com for re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al hos­pi­tal­i­ty events, in­ter­na­tion­al mis­sions and em­bassies of mem­ber states.

An­gos­tu­ra’s chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer, Ian Forbes, said the rum, which was done as part of a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Caribbean rum pro­duc­ers in part­ner­ship with the West In­dies Rum and Spir­its Pro­duc­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (WIRSPA), al­so served as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to high­light the achieve­ments of the Caribbean.

"As one of the 13 pro­duc­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in this ini­tia­tive, An­gos­tu­ra Trib­ute Cari­com Re­lease pro­motes the Caribbean as the birth­place of rum, high­light­ing the di­ver­si­ty and high qual­i­ty of rum pro­duced with­in the re­gion," said Forbes dur­ing a news con­fer­ence to un­veil the rum at the House of An­gos­tu­ra, East­ern Main Road, Laven­tille.

"By dis­trib­ut­ing these prod­ucts to key stake­hold­ers in­clud­ing heads of gov­ern­ment and in­ter­na­tion­al mis­sions we aim to ed­u­cate and raise glob­al aware­ness about Caribbean rum. The pre­sen­ta­tion of this blend recog­nis­es the col­lec­tive suc­cess of CARI­COM in pro­mot­ing re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and de­vel­op­ment while al­so cel­e­brat­ing An­gos­tu­ra's 200th an­niver­sary."

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, who was pre­sent­ed with the spe­cial edi­tion rum, praised An­gos­tu­ra's con­tri­bu­tion to the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor and its en­ter­prise in mak­ing in­roads in­to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

"An­gos­tu­ra's suc­cess is a key part of our na­tion­al progress, but there's an even big­ger nar­ra­tive here. Un­der its cur­rent ex­cel­lent lead­er­ship, An­gos­tu­ra has been demon­strat­ing its strongest ever con­nec­tion to the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty with clear ben­e­fits ex­tend­ing far be­yond our shores," said Browne, who said prod­ucts like these gave the for­eign mis­sions an ad­di­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­mote T&T.

"We have 20 over­sees mis­sions and we are look­ing to use those mis­sions more and more as a plat­form for the show­cas­ing and the mar­ket­ing and the ex­pan­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­port base or sig­na­ture prod­ucts of which An­gos­tu­ra is an im­por­tant part," said the Min­is­ter.

On­ly 240 bot­tles of An­gos­tu­ra Trib­ute Cari­com Re­lease were pro­duced.

An­gos­tu­ra's top three share­hold­ers are Rumpro Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, which holds 92,551,212 shares of 44.97 per cent of An­gos­tu­ra's shares, the Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd, which owns 61,677,011 shares or 29.97 per cent stake and the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board with 9,665,190 shares or 4.70 per cent stake.