Min­is­ter of Trade Paula Gopee-Scoon says the gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to the growth of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the steel­pan.

At the re­launch of “Mustapha Chrome,” of­fi­cial­ly named Chrome Fur­nish­ers Lim­it­ed, she said "the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment for the growth of the steel­pan man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, as a means of gen­er­at­ing for­eign ex­change, cre­at­ing mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment and di­ver­si­fy­ing the econ­o­my.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry, "the re­launch will al­low steel­pan man­u­fac­tur­ers to read­i­ly sat­is­fy the grow­ing de­mand for qual­i­ty chromed steel­pans lo­cal­ly and abroad at a low­er cost and for short­er pro­duc­tion times than hav­ing it done over­seas."

The com­pa­ny of­fers pre­mi­um chrome plat­ing ser­vices for all sizes of steel pans and man­u­fac­tur­ing steel pan ac­ces­sories.

At the rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny held to­day, Min­is­ter of Trade Gopee-Scoon said, “Chrome Fur­nish­ers has been a part of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in El So­cor­ro for sev­er­al decades. With a com­bi­na­tion of per­se­ver­ance, com­mit­ment, as well as sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment, this busi­ness has lit­er­al­ly risen from the ash­es to once again serve the com­mu­ni­ty and the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

In a re­lease by the MTI, it stat­ed that the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try’s Steel­pan Man­u­fac­tur­ing Grant Fund Fa­cil­i­ty, cov­ered the cost of new spe­cialised equip­ment al­low­ing Chrome Fur­nish­ers Ltd., a third-gen­er­a­tion, fam­i­ly-owned com­pa­ny, to of­fi­cial­ly re­sume op­er­a­tions on Jan­u­ary 6. The com­pa­ny had ceased op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing a dev­as­tat­ing fire in 2021.

Prais­ing the com­pa­ny, Gopee-Scoon added, “To­day, Chrome Fur­nish­ers Lim­it­ed reaf­firms its com­mit­ment to play­ing a crit­i­cal role in boost­ing the steel­pan in­dus­try.” She high­light­ed that over the past four years, many pan man­u­fac­tur­ers have had to ship their pans over­seas to be chromed, a process known to im­prove the aes­thet­ics of the steel­pan and en­hance the sound and dura­bil­i­ty of the in­stru­ment. With the re­launch of the fa­cil­i­ty, man­u­fac­tur­ers will be able to “cap­ture ad­di­tion­al val­ue-added ac­tiv­i­ties along the steel­pan val­ue chain.”

Da­ta from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice in­di­cate the steel­pan in­dus­try is marked for sig­nif­i­cant growth, with ex­ports of steel­band in­stru­ments in­creas­ing by ap­prox­i­mate­ly 68 per cent from TT$1.9 mil­lion in 2022 to TT$3.1 mil­lion in 2023.

Gopee-Scoon added that with the new­ly in­au­gu­rat­ed World Steel­pan Day cel­e­brat­ed glob­al­ly, the Min­is­ter said, “we can all ex­pect an in­crease in de­mand for the in­stru­ment and even greater ex­pec­ta­tions for top-notch qual­i­ty; which can on­ly come from the place of ori­gin of the in­stru­ment– Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Gopee-Scoon al­so shared that the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try has es­tab­lished the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Steel­pan Steer­ing Com­mit­tee to de­vel­op a Na­tion­al Gov­er­nance Frame­work for the Steel­pan in­dus­try.

She said fol­low­ing strate­gic re­search and stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tions, the Com­mitte pro­posed a num­ber of ini­tia­tives to boost the ap­peal and de­mand of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment to en­sure that the "steel­pan grows to rep­re­sent more than just our cul­ture, but is trans­formed in­to a home-grown cre­ation that gen­er­ates with it em­ploy­ment and a vi­brant econ­o­my.”

The Min­is­ter fur­ther in­di­cat­ed that the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so aims to im­ple­ment a Steel­pan Tuner Ap­pren­tice­ship Pro­gramme to­ward de­vel­op­ing req­ui­site skills and ser­vices in the in­dus­try, pro­vid­ing for the holis­tic de­vel­op­ment of the steel­pan in­dus­try, the Min­is­ter re­vealed.

Con­clud­ing her state­ment, the Min­is­ter com­mend­ed the work of Chrome Fur­nish­ers Lim­it­ed and recog­nised the Chair­man and mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee for their ef­forts in cre­at­ing a more sus­tain­able in­dus­try, and the many oth­ers who are paving the way for fu­ture suc­cess.

“As we cel­e­brate this oc­ca­sion, let us re­mem­ber that the steel­pan has be­come more than just an in­stru­ment; it is a sym­bol of our cul­ture, our cre­ativ­i­ty and our col­lec­tive ef­forts to­wards a more pros­per­ous to­mor­row.”