The T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) says it is en­cour­aged that ac­tion is be­ing tak­en against those who con­tribute to il­lic­it trade.

This fol­lows su­per­mar­ket own­ers, Stephany Wong Low and Yunx­u­an Huang who were charged with sell­ing il­le­gal cig­a­rettes and con­duct­ing il­le­gal gam­bling at their busi­ness­es.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMA tack­ling il­lic­it trade is im­por­tant as it is linked to more or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ing hu­man traf­fick­ing, drug traf­fick­ing and smug­gling of firearms.

“In ad­di­tion to mon­i­tor­ing the re­tail out­lets, the TTMA is cog­nisant that free trade zones can act as havens for il­lic­it trade,” it said, adding that it is there­fore, im­per­a­tive that com­pa­nies in free zones do not be­come clear­ing hous­es for il­lic­it prod­ucts.

The TTMA al­so not­ed that sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clud­ing the Eco­nom­ic In­tel­li­gence Unit, the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co­op­er­a­tion and De­vel­op­ment, the Transna­tion­al Al­liance to Com­bat Il­lic­it Trade and the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion have pro­vid­ed some rec­om­men­da­tions to ad­dress il­lic­it trade in the free zones.

TTMA ad­vised that lo­cal en­force­ment agen­cies can re­view these rec­om­men­da­tions and adapt where prac­ti­cal.

Say­ing that the TTMA will con­tin­ues to do its part to ed­u­cate the pub­lic about this prob­lem, the or­gan­i­sa­tion added that in col­lab­o­ra­tion with M Hamel Smith and the In­ter­na­tion­al Trade­mark As­so­ci­a­tion, it would be host­ing a we­bi­nar on poli­cies to ad­dress coun­ter­feit­ing.

The we­bi­nar would fea­ture rep­re­sen­ta­tives of ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al brands of al­co­hol and to­bac­co, as well as a lo­cal ex­pert on copy­right is­sues.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the Pol­i­cy Di­a­logue – Best Prac­tices in An­ti-Coun­ter­feit­ing En­force­ment in the Caribbean we­bi­nar con­tact the TTMA Sec­re­tari­at at 675-8862 ext 225 or 239.