GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

T&T’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor con­tributed an es­ti­mat­ed US$10.6 bil­lion in 2025, ex­clud­ing pe­tro­le­um and chem­i­cal prod­ucts — a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease that un­der­scores its role as a key pil­lar in the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion strat­e­gy.

Re­in­forc­ing this mo­men­tum, over 80 rein­vest­ments in non-en­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ing were record­ed last year, in­ject­ing US$1.25 bil­lion back in­to the econ­o­my and sig­nalling strong con­fi­dence in the na­tion’s tra­jec­to­ry.

These fig­ures were spot­light­ed at the TTMA Pres­i­dent’s Din­ner and Awards, where the Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Satyaka­ma “Ka­ma” Ma­haraj out­lined the Gov­ern­ment’s am­bi­tious tar­gets: US$2 bil­lion in ex­port growth over two years, US$5 bil­lion over five years, and US$3 bil­lion in new in­vest­ments with­in two years and US$9 bil­lion over five years.

The plan al­so in­cludes the cre­ation of 3,000 new jobs, with suc­cess hing­ing on deep col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Gov­ern­ment and in­dus­try.

The min­istry is prepar­ing to launch the “Buy Lo­cal, Build Trin­ba­go” cam­paign be­fore the end of 2025 — a pa­tri­ot­ic ini­tia­tive aimed at re­duc­ing im­ports, con­serv­ing for­eign ex­change and strength­en­ing do­mes­tic sup­ply chains.

This strat­e­gy com­ple­ments on­go­ing ef­forts to sup­port man­u­fac­tur­ers through tar­get­ed in­cen­tives, trade mis­sions and in­vest­ment fa­cil­i­ta­tion.

To uni­fy the pri­vate sec­tor’s voice, the min­is­ter in­tro­duced the Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T (PSOTT), a new um­brel­la body mod­elled af­ter the in­ter-re­li­gious en­ti­ty.

PSOTT brings to­geth­er cham­bers of com­merce, fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, law firms, pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­a­tions and em­bassies to re­duce frag­men­ta­tion and dri­ve na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness.

“As the min­is­ter of trade, in­vest­ment and tourism, I have set a clear pol­i­cy di­rec­tion for the min­istry, which is ac­tive­ly pur­sued by a dy­nam­ic team fo­cused on de­liv­er­ing re­sults. I have es­tab­lished a struc­tured frame­work for the de­vel­op­ment and guid­ance of the ex­ec­u­tive team, en­abling re­spon­sive and pro­gres­sive nur­tur­ing of the team as chal­lenges and per­for­mance de­mands arise. A week­ly re­port­ing and per­for­mance man­age­ment sys­tem has been im­ple­ment­ed for the ex­ec­u­tive team of the min­istry, with ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion by the pri­vate sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. This sys­tem en­sures ac­count­abil­i­ty, con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment and mea­sur­able progress week by week, with tan­gi­ble re­sults al­ready ev­i­dent and trans­for­ma­tion un­der­way,” Ma­haraj fur­ther ex­plained.

As spon­sor of the Man­u­fac­tur­er of the Year – Large Award, the min­istry cel­e­brat­ed the con­tri­bu­tions of large man­u­fac­tur­ers, recog­nis­ing their role in cre­at­ing qual­i­ty em­ploy­ment, gen­er­at­ing for­eign ex­change, and an­chor­ing sup­ply chains that sup­port small­er busi­ness­es.

The award re­flects the min­istry’s com­mit­ment to growth through in­no­va­tion, ex­cel­lence in pro­duc­tion, and ex­pan­sion in­to glob­al mar­kets.

TTMA pres­i­dent Dale Par­son, who al­so de­liv­ered an ad­dress, cel­e­brat­ed the re­silience and achieve­ments of the na­tion’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor while out­lin­ing a bold vi­sion for re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty, SME em­pow­er­ment and in­fra­struc­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion.

“While we deeply re­spect the con­tri­bu­tions of our larg­er mem­bers, it goes with­out say­ing that small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es form the back­bone of our man­u­fac­tur­ing ecosys­tem. SMEs rep­re­sent 65 per cent of all man­u­fac­tur­ers in Trinidad, with tremen­dous po­ten­tial as em­ploy­ers and val­ue cre­ators,” Par­son said.

He stressed, the man­u­fac­tur­ing com­mu­ni­ty of T&T re­spond­ed not with hes­i­ta­tion, but with in­no­va­tion and re­solve.

“We gath­er tonight, not out of du­ty, but with deep pride and grat­i­tude,” Par­son de­clared, “to ho­n­our the busi­ness own­ers and com­pa­nies whose lead­er­ship, in­no­va­tion, and per­se­ver­ance con­tin­ue to dri­ve our in­dus­try for­ward.”

Par­son al­so wel­comed the gov­ern­ment’s plan to re­de­vel­op a por­tion of the long-aban­doned Ca­roni Rac­ing Com­plex in­to a world class con­ven­tion cen­tre man­aged by TTMA.

The site, com­pris­ing over 404 acres, is poised to be­come a strate­gic plat­form for re­gion­al trade and ex­port, ad­vanc­ing T&T’s am­bi­tion to be­come a man­u­fac­tur­ing hub for the Caribbean