GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter of Grena­da Dick­on Mitchell says his Gov­ern­ment is look­ing for­ward to in­creased en­gage­ment with this coun­try as it seeks to find new av­enues to col­lab­o­rate and mar­ket unique as­pects such as its cul­ture, for the re­gion­al and glob­al mar­kets.

He not­ed a To­ba­go del­e­ga­tion re­cent­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in Grena­da’s cul­tur­al ex­changes dur­ing its Car­ni­val to deep­en part­ner­ships and knowl­edge for both is­lands’ cul­tur­al prod­ucts.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Mitchell said Grena­da wants to en­hance the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor through on­line trad­ing plat­forms for buy­ing and sell­ing goods.

He not­ed dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion en­hances the trad­abil­i­ty of ser­vices and will pro­vide in­creas­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for youth in­ter­est­ed in ICT through dig­i­tal trade plat­forms and trade in­tel­li­gence to iden­ti­fy and ex­ploit new mar­kets and e-com­merce, through so­cial me­dia, on­line brand­ing and mar­ket­ing.

Mitchell made these re­marks while speak­ing at the Pres­i­dent’s Din­ner and Awards Cer­e­mo­ny host­ed by the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, held at the Hy­att Re­gency on Tues­day night.

The event was themed, Trans­form­ing the econ­o­my through trade.

Al­so fo­cus­ing on re­silience, Mitchell said as coun­tries con­tin­ue to build eco­nom­ic strengths trade will play a crit­i­cal role to ef­fec­tive­ly sup­port liveli­hoods.

To this end, he said Grena­da in­tends to strength­en ex­ist­ing trade re­la­tion­ships and build new ones that pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth and de­vel­op­ment, and the cre­ation of sus­tain­able jobs.

Ac­cord­ing to Mitchell, Grena­da will fo­cus on key ar­eas that will trans­form its ap­proach to trade in­clud­ing sup­port­ing re­gion­al food se­cu­ri­ty (through trade in fish­eries and agro processed goods); di­ver­si­fy­ing the pro­duc­tion of goods and ser­vices (to cater to di­verse tastes and in­ter­ests); strength­en­ing pri­vate sec­tor en­gage­ment; em­brac­ing tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ment (to­wards new and safer means of pro­duc­tion); and pub­lic sen­si­ti­sa­tion and ed­u­ca­tion.

Not­ing that the re­gion­al food im­port bill is quick­ly mov­ing to­wards US$5 bil­lion and, with glob­al food trade ex­pect­ed to reach a record high, Mitchell ad­vised this will re­quire a con­cert­ed ef­fort from de­vel­op­ing na­tions to curb the dam­ag­ing ef­fects on food se­cu­ri­ty.

“For its part, Grena­da will seek to aug­ment pro­duc­tion in the sec­tors that we nat­u­ral­ly thrive in, giv­en our ac­cess to the ocean and fer­tile lands. The tried-and-true ar­eas such as agri­cul­ture, fish­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing will be re-ex­am­ined with a view to ex­pand­ing and di­ver­si­fy­ing our ex­port base,” he ex­plained.

Grena­da al­so will en­deav­our to di­ver­si­fy its tra­di­tion­al prod­ucts and ser­vices through niche mar­kets, es­pe­cial­ly in the cul­tur­al space, the Grena­di­an PM said.

Grena­da has al­so start­ed the process for the le­gal­i­sa­tion of cannabis and the de­vel­op­ment of that in­dus­try which will fo­cus on med­ical and in­dus­tri­al us­es of the plant and will cre­ate new av­enues of em­ploy­ment and gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change through ex­port, Mitchell added.

TTMA’s pres­i­dent Tri­cia Coos­al, who al­so de­liv­ered re­marks, said a trans­formed lo­cal econ­o­my can lift Cari­com’s econ­o­my, adding that a big part of this ethos is for its mem­bers to get in­to dif­fer­ent ter­ri­to­ries and meet oth­er man­u­fac­tures to fa­cil­i­tate trade and co-op­er­a­tion.

Last year, the TTMA held a vir­tu­al trade mis­sion to Grena­da to en­gage in rec­i­p­ro­cal trade which Coos­al not­ed was the TTMA’s way of adapt­ing through COVID-19 and en­sur­ing busi­ness con­tin­ued.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMA pres­i­dent the out­comes from that mis­sion proved very re­ward­ing for firms in both coun­tries as over two days 65 meet­ings took place and over half a mil­lion dol­lars’ worth of trade deals were con­clud­ed.

Coos­al added the TTMA looks for­ward to tak­ing a phys­i­cal trade mis­sion to Grena­da in 2023.