The Min­ster of Trade, Com­merce and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon has ex­pressed that the gov­ern­ment is in­tent­ly study­ing ways in which busi­ness­es in the coun­try can restart their op­er­a­tions.

In a re­lease by the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), it not­ed: “The Min­is­ter high­light­ed that while the gov­ern­ment was ac­tive­ly look­ing at al­low­ing all busi­ness­es to op­er­ate soon, the pri­or­i­ty at this time is the preser­va­tion of life of the coun­try’s cit­i­zens.”

It con­tin­ued: “The Min­is­ter al­so in­di­cat­ed that the gov­ern­ment is fo­cused on MSMEs dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time and is in dis­cus­sion with par­ties to of­fer the best pos­si­ble so­lu­tions to these busi­ness­es.”

Gopee-Scoon brought greet­ings at the TTMA’s cy­ber An­nu­al Meet­ing. Al­so speak­ing at the meet­ing was the re-elect­ed pres­i­dent Fran­ka Costel­loe who not­ed that some good has come out of the COVID-19 out­break.

Costel­loe re­marked that the overnight shift to tech­no­log­i­cal so­lu­tions is a nec­es­sary and im­por­tant step that has been pro­pelled by the cur­rent cir­cum­stances.

She in­di­cat­ed: “We’ve all had to beat the clock, to find work-from-home so­lu­tions, as a re­spon­si­ble and nec­es­sary de­ci­sion to keep busi­ness go­ing. On­line pur­chas­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties have been crit­i­cal to keep prod­uct mov­ing; and lever­ag­ing tech­nol­o­gy to re­duce labour while main­tain­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, is manda­to­ry.”

Costel­loe men­tioned that tech­nol­o­gy is a crit­i­cal lever for dri­ving growth and ex­port po­ten­tial in the sec­tor; but not­ed that more must be done to save busi­ness­es and to save jobs.

Three weeks ago, Costel­loe made a list of rec­om­men­da­tions to Gov­ern­ment which de­tailed ini­tia­tives that should be quick­ly em­ployed to al­low rea­son­able lev­els of cash flow to pay em­ploy­ees who are now in lock­down and un­able to work.

In the TTMA’s An­nu­al Meet­ing mes­sage, she said, “We have al­so had to face the un­prece­dent­ed re­al­i­ty of re­mov­ing per­sons from our op­er­a­tions -while-at the same time -keep­ing them on pay­roll. No doubt-it has been the right thing to do, giv­en our cur­rent so­cial sce­nario.”

The chal­lenge, Costel­loe, posit­ed is the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the sta­tus quo. She be­lieves that in the new norm, a labour dis­cus­sion is im­mi­nent. “We are not go­ing to be re­turn­ing to busi­ness as usu­al”, she cau­tioned.

Costel­loe com­mend­ed mem­bers for step­ping up to the plate in recog­ni­tion of the fact that the COVID-19 threat re­quires col­lec­tive ac­tion.

Costel­loe, called up­on mem­bers to act re­spon­si­bly in the face of the un­cer­tain­ties in the mar­ket trig­gered by the on­set of Covid-19. The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so called up­on Gov­ern­ment to cre­ate some re­lief to keep busi­ness­es afloat and to sus­tain lev­els of em­ploy­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to Costel­loe, TTMA mem­bers are fac­ing sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tions in trade and cash flows; and that they were now in the fourth week of re­duced trade and a re­pressed econ­o­my.

She said: “We have had to make in­vest­ments in tech­nol­o­gy -while car­ry­ing cur­rent ex­pens­es. The fu­ture can feel omi­nous at times.”