An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to re­duce the rate of du­ty on oth­er hy­draulic ce­ment from 10 per cent to ze­ro per cent.

The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try said yes­ter­day the de­ci­sion fol­lows its mon­i­tor­ing of mar­ket con­di­tions in the ce­ment in­dus­try, and the re­cent ac­tion by Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL) to in­crease the price of ce­ment by 7 per cent this year.

In a news re­lease, the min­istry said the price ad­just­ment was the fifth in­crease im­ple­ment­ed by TCL since 2021.

The min­istry said ce­ment is a crit­i­cal link be­tween the man­u­fac­tur­ing and con­struc­tion sec­tors and is there­fore vi­tal for the coun­try’s sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. The avail­abil­i­ty of af­ford­able ce­ment to cus­tomers is of para­mount im­por­tance to the Gov­ern­ment, said the min­istry

Guardian Me­dia reached out to TCL for com­ment sev­er­al times via phone and What­sApp and to no avail up to press time.

In Feb­ru­ary 2024, Cab­i­net agreed to the sus­pen­sion of the quo­ta and reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem for ce­ment, which al­lows any quan­ti­ty of im­port­ed ce­ment to en­ter the lo­cal mar­ket.

Notwith­stand­ing, the min­istry said ce­ment re­mains on the im­port neg­a­tive list mean­ing that a li­cence is re­quired for the im­por­ta­tion of the prod­uct.

Ap­pli­ca­tions for a li­cence to im­port ce­ment must be sub­mit­ted to the Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try and ap­pli­cants are re­quired to, in­ter alia: be reg­is­tered un­der the Com­pa­nies Act; have ad­e­quate and ap­pro­pri­ate ware­hous­ing fa­cil­i­ties for the safe and re­li­able stor­age of im­port­ed ce­ment; have an es­tab­lished dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work; and en­sure that all im­port­ed ce­ment meets the rel­e­vant Cari­com Re­gion­al Prod­uct Stan­dards.

This li­cens­ing regime the min­istry high­light­ed al­lows for the qual­i­ty of im­port­ed ce­ment to be mon­i­tored by the T&T Bu­reau of Stan­dards, to en­sure con­sumer safe­ty.

This en­tails strict en­force­ment of the com­pul­so­ry stan­dard for ce­ment on the lo­cal mar­ket which spec­i­fies the re­quire­ments for hy­draulic, port­land (build­ing ce­ment-grey) and blend­ed ce­ments used pri­mar­i­ly in the con­struc­tion in­dus­try.

The com­pul­so­ry stan­dard in­cludes re­quire­ments for com­pres­sive strength, phys­i­cal prop­er­ties, chem­i­cal prop­er­ties, pack­ag­ing, la­belling, and the means of de­ter­min­ing com­pli­ance with these re­quire­ments.

The du­ty re­duc­tion will be af­fect­ed by the pub­li­ca­tion of the nec­es­sary le­gal or­ders which will be com­plet­ed in the next few days.

TCL’s bagged prod­ucts—such as Pre­mi­um Plus, Eco Ce­ment, and Plas­ta Mas­ta— in­creased on Feb­ru­ary 17. That is al­most a year to the day since it last in­creased, and the in­crease in bulk ce­ment took ef­fect on March 5.

In Feb­ru­ary Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon said the in­crease in the price of TCL’s ce­ment is un­jus­ti­fied.

“For us, we are not hap­py where we are, when one looks at the cu­mu­la­tive price in­creas­es by TCL. We are not pleased about that at all. That is ful­ly be­fore us. I have had dis­cus­sions as Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try with TCL, and I’ve said in no un­cer­tain terms that we will not coun­te­nance the con­tin­ued in­creas­es by TCL in the mar­ket­place.”