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Saturday, January 18, 2025

Gopee-Scoon lauds relaunch of pan-chroming factory

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8 days ago
20250111
Minister of Trade and Industry, Paula Gopee-Scoon, (centre) cuts the ribbon at the relaunch of Chrome Furnishers Ltd in San Juan on January 8, 2025, alongside company directors Nadara Mohammed (fifth from right) and Shafiat Mohammed (fourth from right). Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Randall Karim (left), Senate Vice President Dr Muhammad Yunus Ibrahim (third from left), Professor Clément Imbert, deputy chairman of the Steelpan Steering Committee  (fifth from left), along with other members of the Mohammed family and members of the steelpan community.

Minister of Trade and Industry, Paula Gopee-Scoon, (centre) cuts the ribbon at the relaunch of Chrome Furnishers Ltd in San Juan on January 8, 2025, alongside company directors Nadara Mohammed (fifth from right) and Shafiat Mohammed (fourth from right). Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Randall Karim (left), Senate Vice President Dr Muhammad Yunus Ibrahim (third from left), Professor Clément Imbert, deputy chairman of the Steelpan Steering Committee (fifth from left), along with other members of the Mohammed family and members of the steelpan community.

Photo Ministry of Trade and Industry

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.


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