The T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) con­tin­ues to strength­en ties with var­i­ous coun­tries for the ex­pan­sion and de­vel­op­ment of the lo­cal ser­vices sec­tor as well as ex­port growth.

Sev­er­al coun­tries have al­ready shown in­ter­est in this en­deav­our, which were de­tailed in the TTC­SI pub­li­ca­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Cer­ti­fied Ser­vices Ex­porters 2021 / 2023: In­sights in­to Gate­way to Trade T&T, which was re­cent­ly re­leased.

Jerome Khan, hon­orary con­sul of Suri­name to T&T, shared some in­sights in the pub­li­ca­tion about op­por­tu­ni­ties for trade and in­vest­ment part­ner­ships be­tween ser­vices en­tre­pre­neurs from T&T and their coun­ter­parts in that coun­try, which is a mem­ber of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) and is lo­cat­ed in the north­ern part of South Amer­i­ca.

Khan not­ed that since the aim of the Cari­com is to deep­en the co­op­er­a­tion be­tween and among mem­ber states, it is im­por­tant that both T&T and Suri­name fur­ther de­vel­op re­gion­al sup­ply chains.

“In­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant is re­duc­ing trade and in­vest­ment ob­sta­cles, look­ing at new ar­eas of col­lab­o­ra­tion, en­hanc­ing pri­vate sec­tor en­gage­ment, and en­hanc­ing the ca­pac­i­ty to move goods be­tween the two coun­tries. As T&T has a great deal of ex­pe­ri­ence in the sec­tors of man­u­fac­tur­ing, agro-pro­cess­ing, dis­tri­b­u­tion, trans­porta­tion, ser­vices and lo­gis­tics, it could ex­port those skills,” Khan ex­plained.

Khan said that Suri­name be­lieves Cari­com cit­i­zens should al­so be able to ben­e­fit from the emerg­ing oil and gas in­dus­try in Suri­name, say­ing this vi­sion is in line with the ide­ol­o­gy of Cari­com—to help each oth­er in each de­vel­op­ment.

“That is why Suri­name is open to in­vestors from the re­gion, as well as for Trinida­di­an en­tre­pre­neurs, who wish to in­vest and/or pro­vide their ser­vices in this par­tic­u­lar sec­tor, as well as in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor to en­sure food se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion,” Khan said

He said apart from the oil and gas in­dus­tries, oth­er ar­eas of in­ter­est in Suri­name are the agro-pro­cess­ing in­dus­try, agri­cul­ture, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, tourism, and man­u­fac­tur­ing, adding that these pro­vide vast in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for T&T.

In turn, he said Suri­name is seek­ing mar­ket ac­cess to T&T for fresh or frozen fruits and veg­eta­bles, as well as fresh and frozen prod­ucts and by-prod­ucts of an­i­mal ori­gin.

Not­ing that there have been long­stand­ing trad­ing and eco­nom­ic links be­tween Suri­name and T&T, Khan said Suri­name is a sig­nif­i­cant and ex­pand­ing ex­port mar­ket for this coun­try.

He added that Suri­name was T&T’s fifth-high­est ex­port mar­ket with­in Cari­com in 2020, ac­count­ing for al­most sev­en per cent of to­tal ex­ports.

Al­so in 2020, non-en­er­gy goods like cig­a­rettes, ce­ment, food and bev­er­ages, plas­tic bot­tles, pa­per and pa­per prod­ucts, and food and bev­er­ages ac­count­ed for al­most 47 per cent of all ex­ports to Suri­name.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, T&T im­ports a siz­able num­ber of prod­ucts from Suri­name, such as de­ter­gents, frozen seafood, fresh fruits, and some petro­chem­i­cal goods.

The US al­so con­tin­ues to main­tain good re­la­tions in trade be­ing this coun­try’s largest trad­ing part­ner.

Va­lerie Laboy, US Em­bassy eco­nom­ic and com­mer­cial of­fi­cer, who was al­so fea­tured in the pub­li­ca­tion said for­tu­nate­ly for this coun­try, there is a ro­bust and dy­nam­ic ecosys­tem in the ser­vices sec­tor, with play­ers in com­mu­ni­ca­tions, trans­port, fi­nance, ed­u­ca­tion, tourism and en­vi­ron­men­tal ser­vices.

“We see def­i­nite op­por­tu­ni­ties for our com­pa­nies in the Unit­ed States wish­ing to ex­pand and ex­port to the T&T mar­ket. For Trinidad and To­ba­go, there are op­por­tu­ni­ties for its com­pa­nies and en­tre­pre­neurs to ex­pand, and to ex­port to dif­fer­ent tar­get­ed mar­kets in the Unit­ed States,” she added.

Laboy al­so cit­ed that ac­cord­ing to the World Bank, over the last three decades, the ser­vices sec­tor has grown faster than man­u­fac­tur­ing in many de­vel­op­ing economies.

“For ser­vices, there is no turn­ing back. There has been an evo­lu­tion in the recog­ni­tion of trade in ser­vices, and the role of ser­vices pro­vi­sion in any econ­o­my, and see­ing ser­vices as an en­gine of growth for en­tre­pre­neur­ship, in­no­va­tion and job cre­ation. Ser­vices present a mod­el for re­silience and sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” she added.

In March this year, Trade Min­is­ter Gopee-Scoon not­ed that for the past three years, T&T’s av­er­age an­nu­al ex­ports to the US were val­ued at TT$22.3 bil­lion while im­ports av­er­aged TT$14 bil­lion.

Among the top ex­ports to the US in­clude an­hy­drous am­mo­nia, fer­rous prod­ucts from iron ore, liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas, methanol, crude pe­tro­le­um and urea.

In shar­ing his in­sights TTC­SI’s pres­i­dent Mark Edghill said it can be ar­gued that ser­vices com­pa­nies and firms are the oil that makes the eco­nom­ic en­gine purr, be­cause of their com­ple­men­tar­i­ty, dex­ter­i­ty and busi­ness fa­cil­i­ta­tion char­ac­ter­is­tics.

“Busi­ness in oth­er eco­nom­ic sec­tors re­ly heav­i­ly on ser­vices providers to suc­ceed — whether as in­puts, as ac­tiv­i­ties with­in firms; or as out­puts, sold bun­dled with goods. To il­lus­trate… It takes 30 sep­a­rate ser­vices to get a loaf of bread in­to a shop­ping bas­ket, ac­count­ing for 72 per cent of the fi­nal price,” he added.

Re­gard­ing the work of the TTC­SI, he said it has ac­cel­er­at­ed train­ing for ser­vice providers and firms un­der the Ser­vices Go Glob­al (SGG) train­ing pro­gramme for com­pa­nies with the demon­strat­ed po­ten­tial to trade in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion’s CEO, Vashti Guyadeen, said the pub­li­ca­tion rep­re­sent­ed four years of plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion of a ro­bust ex­port dri­ve—an am­bi­tious and bold move spear­head­ed by a small group of ad­vo­cates, who saw the vi­sion and the trans­for­ma­tive na­ture of build­ing a cadre of cer­ti­fied ser­vices ex­porters, to­geth­er with a team of in­dige­nous train­ers/coach­es drawn from mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions of the TTC­SI.

The first step, she said, saw the TTC­SI ac­ti­vate and ex­e­cute Co­hort One of the Gate­way to Trade (G2T) T&T Ac­cel­er­a­tor Ex­port Readi­ness Pro­gramme for SMEs.

Some 22 ser­vices sec­tor firms from a pool of 80 have de­vel­oped the ca­pac­i­ty to in­crease their ex­port earn­ings by trad­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

That was just the start of the jour­ney.

“Over the past four years, I have learnt that a ‘whole of gov­ern­ment’ ap­proach is nec­es­sary to de­vel­op the en­abling en­vi­ron­ment for ser­vices ex­porters to thrive. More im­por­tant­ly, it takes a com­mu­ni­ty of like-mind­ed per­sons to in­cul­cate an ex­porter’s mind­set,” Guyadeen added.

Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments that the ser­vices sec­tor has sig­nif­i­cant scope for growth in terms of ex­port gen­er­a­tion, Guyadeen not­ed that de­vel­op­ments in in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy (ICT) have made it much eas­i­er to per­form ser­vices for clients any­where in the world.

How­ev­er, as the da­ta shows, T&T has not been able to max­imise ser­vice ex­ports.

Ac­cord­ing to Guyadeen, the top three chal­lenges im­pact­ing the sec­tor are; craft­ing poli­cies to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­pan­sion of ser­vices ex­ports is dif­fi­cult as the lack of cur­rent dis­ag­gre­gat­ed da­ta pre­vents a thor­ough analy­sis of the sta­tus of ser­vices ex­ports, there­by mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to de­vel­op suit­able poli­cies; ex­port pro­mo­tion agen­cies do not have enough in­for­ma­tion to prop­er­ly pro­mote ser­vice providers and pre­pare them to ex­ploit suit­able mar­kets and the fact that

Many ser­vice providers do not have a plat­form to show­case their work.

How­ev­er, she said this coun­try has rel­e­vant re­search and mar­ket in­tel­li­gence.

What is need­ed now, Guyadeen added, is to strate­gise on the way for­ward.