Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon is ea­ger to see in­creased sup­ply of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment to the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket fol­low­ing the re­turn of Chrome Fur­nish­ers Ltd.

The com­pa­ny which is well known as “Mustapha Chrome,” host­ed a rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day, to mark its re­open­ing.

Gopee-Scoon, who at­tend­ed the event, ex­pressed hope that 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.

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.”

The Gov­ern­ment sup­port­ed the re-open­ing via the Min­istry’s Steel­pan Man­u­fac­tur­ing Grant Fund Fa­cil­i­ty, which cov­ered new spe­cialised equip­ment al­low­ing Chrome Fur­nish­ers Ltd., a third gen­er­a­tion, fam­i­ly-owned com­pa­ny, to of­fi­cial­ly re­sume op­er­a­tions on Jan­u­ary 6, 2025. The com­pa­ny had ceased op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing a dev­as­tat­ing fire in Jan­u­ary 2021.

Gopee-Scoon said, “To­day, Chrome Fur­nish­ers Ltd reaf­firms its com­mit­ment to play­ing a crit­i­cal role in boost­ing the steel­pan in­dus­try.”

She not­ed 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.

Now, with the re­launch of the fa­cil­i­ty, man­u­fac­tur­ers will be able to “cap­ture ad­di­tion­al val­ue-added ac­tiv­i­ties along the steel­pan val­ue chain.”

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

Based on this, as well as plans to cel­e­brate World Steel­pan Day glob­al­ly, Gopee-Scoon 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. There­fore 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.”

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

“Fol­low­ing strate­gic re­search and stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tions, the Com­mit­tee has pro­posed a num­ber of ini­tia­tives to boost the ap­peal of and de­mand for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment that in­volve, among oth­er ar­eas, man­u­fac­tur­ing, archiv­ing, ed­u­ca­tion, record­ing, mar­ket­ing, en­ter­tain­ment, stan­dards, and re­search and de­vel­op­ment, to be im­ple­ment­ed by var­i­ous min­istries," said Gopee-Scoon, adding, "These pro­grammes 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.

Deputy chair­man of the Na­tion­al Steel­pan Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Pro­fes­sor Clé­ment Im­bert said he was de­light­ed to see the com­pa­ny’s re­turn.

De­scrib­ing some of the sci­ence be­hind chroming, he em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of the process to “bright­en­ing the sound,” im­prov­ing re­sis­tance to cor­ro­sion and im­prov­ing the tonal char­ac­ter­is­tics of the steel­pan.