GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Giv­en T&T’s pop­u­la­tion size, the on­ly way to achieve con­tin­ued growth is to ex­port to ex­tra re­gion­al mar­kets, says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

In this re­gard, he said Gov­ern­ment has been do­ing its part to cre­ate strate­gic part­ner­ships that are al­ready bear­ing fruits for the pri­vate sec­tor, not­ing that this is be­ing un­der­tak­en through the es­tab­lish­ment of com­mer­cial of­fices and ap­point­ment of com­mer­cial at­tachés at key lo­ca­tions.

This, the PM said, would as­sist ex­porters in over­com­ing trade bar­ri­ers, en­ter­ing new mar­kets, and forg­ing new busi­ness re­la­tion­ships in their re­spec­tive mar­kets.

He made the com­ments dur­ing the com­mis­sion­ing of pro­duc­tion Line 7 at Carib Brew­ery, Champs Fleurs yes­ter­day.

Row­ley fur­ther ad­vised that if this coun­try is to sus­tain the growth and per­for­mance of the nonen­er­gy sec­tor, there must be a res­olute de­ter­mi­na­tion by both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor to in­vest.

“Pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment of time and re­sources to sup­port con­tin­ued in­no­va­tion, growth and ex­pan­sion; com­ple­ment­ed by pub­lic sec­tor in­vest­ment and tar­get­ed pro­grammes and ini­tia­tives will cre­ate the strate­gic part­ner­ship nec­es­sary for con­tin­ued progress,” he added.

Stat­ing that the Gov­ern­ment views the nonen­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor as a strong and vi­able dri­ver of eco­nom­ic growth and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, Row­ley not­ed that dur­ing fis­cal 2023, 40 ma­jor rein­vest­ments by man­u­fac­tur­ers were record­ed amount­ing to TT$1.4 bil­lion and these projects are ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate at least 1,000 jobs.

Fur­ther, he said Gov­ern­ment has al­so been do­ing its part to grow and sup­port the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, in­clud­ing in­vest­ment in eco­nom­ic spaces such as the re­cent­ly opened 144-acre Phoenix Park In­dus­tri­al Es­tate which is al­most ful­ly sub­scribed.

He added that the Dow Vil­lage In­dus­tri­al Park which is ad­ja­cent to the Phoenix Park In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and com­pris­es 147 acres, is al­so be­ing de­vel­oped and will help meet the in­creased de­mand by in­vestors for ad­di­tion­al space to grow and ex­pand their op­er­a­tions in light man­u­fac­tur­ing, lo­gis­tics, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and re­lat­ed busi­ness­es ser­vices.

De­sign works and ini­tial con­struc­tion ser­vices have al­ready com­menced and this park is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in fis­cal 2025. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Row­ley said the Fac­to­ry Road In­dus­tri­al Park will be opened in Au­gust 2024.