An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ar­chi­tec­ture, en­gi­neer­ing, con­struc­tion and in­te­ri­or de­sign pro­fes­sion­als must look be­yond the do­mes­tic mar­ket and po­si­tion their ex­per­tise to se­cure a greater share of the Caribbean’s build­ing and de­vel­op­ment ex­pen­di­ture.

The sec­tor has ex­port po­ten­tial be­yond phys­i­cal prod­ucts, with pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, tech­ni­cal knowl­edge and de­sign ca­pa­bil­i­ties of­fer­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal busi­ness­es to com­pete for re­gion­al con­tracts.

Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj made the call at yes­ter­day’s open­ing of the in­au­gur­al Be­yond the Blue­print 2026 ex­hi­bi­tion at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, where he chal­lenged lo­cal busi­ness­es to work to­geth­er to pur­sue larg­er re­gion­al projects.

“We should be aim­ing for a larg­er T&T share of the Caribbean’s build­ing ex­pen­di­ture,” Ma­haraj stat­ed.

He point­ed to re­gion­al ho­tel de­vel­op­ments as ex­am­ples of the op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able to lo­cal busi­ness­es, not­ing that projects re­quire the ser­vices of ar­chi­tects, en­gi­neers, quan­ti­ty sur­vey­ors, fur­ni­ture man­u­fac­tur­ers, in­te­ri­or de­sign­ers, artists and tech­nol­o­gy providers.

Rather than com­pet­ing in­di­vid­u­al­ly, he en­cour­aged busi­ness­es to com­bine their ca­pa­bil­i­ties and present stronger pro­pos­als to re­gion­al de­vel­op­ers.

An in­di­vid­ual com­pa­ny might have an ex­cel­lent prod­uct but lack the ca­pac­i­ty to ful­fil the re­quire­ments of a ma­jor de­vel­op­ment. How­ev­er, sev­er­al busi­ness­es work­ing to­geth­er could of­fer co­or­di­nat­ed ser­vices, com­pat­i­ble spec­i­fi­ca­tions and more com­pre­hen­sive so­lu­tions.

Ma­haraj al­so urged lo­cal de­vel­op­ers to con­sid­er do­mes­tic man­u­fac­tur­ers and ser­vice providers dur­ing the de­sign stage of projects, rather than wait­ing un­til pro­cure­ment for con­struc­tion be­gins.

“Buy Lo­cal, Build Trin­ba­go has a prac­ti­cal mean­ing in this in­dus­try: know what our man­u­fac­tur­ers and pro­fes­sion­als can de­liv­er, and give them a fair op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­pete.”

He ac­knowl­edged that busi­ness­es need­ed to meet re­quire­ments for qual­i­ty, safe­ty and val­ue, but stressed that lo­cal com­pa­nies must al­so have op­por­tu­ni­ties to com­pete for con­tracts.

Me­di­aLive Pro­duc­tions Ltd chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Chris­tine Fer­reira, the pro­duc­er of Be­yond the Blue­print, told Guardian Me­dia the ex­hi­bi­tion was cre­at­ed to bring to­geth­er the en­tire built en­vi­ron­ment ecosys­tem and show­case ex­per­tise that could be ex­port­ed.

Fer­reira es­ti­mat­ed that be­tween 30 and 40 ex­hibitors were par­tic­i­pat­ing, in­clud­ing busi­ness­es and pro­fes­sion­als from across the Caribbean, the Unit­ed States and Eu­rope.

She stressed that the ex­port po­ten­tial of the sec­tor ex­tend­ed be­yond fur­ni­ture and oth­er man­u­fac­tured prod­ucts to in­clude ar­chi­tec­ture, en­gi­neer­ing and in­te­ri­or de­sign ser­vices.

“These are ser­vices that we can ex­port, so we don’t have to build some­thing to ex­port alone. We have our brains, and that is what I want to do.”

Fer­reira said she want­ed to bring greater at­ten­tion to pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices that were some­times over­looked in dis­cus­sions about the coun­try’s ex­port po­ten­tial, which tra­di­tion­al­ly fo­cused heav­i­ly on oil and gas.

She de­scribed the ex­hi­bi­tion as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to place those ca­pa­bil­i­ties at the fore­front while cre­at­ing con­nec­tions be­tween busi­ness­es op­er­at­ing across the re­gion.

The event brings to­geth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, ar­chi­tects, en­gi­neers, in­te­ri­or de­sign­ers and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als in­volved in the built en­vi­ron­ment.

Fer­reira said she had been plan­ning the ex­hi­bi­tion for some time, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly or­gan­ised a sim­i­lar show in Bar­ba­dos many years ago.

She want­ed to es­tab­lish a plat­form in T&T where the dif­fer­ent dis­ci­plines could in­ter­act, de­vel­op part­ner­ships and iden­ti­fy busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Among the in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pants are ex­hibitors from the British Vir­gin Is­lands, Bar­ba­dos and the Unit­ed States, in­clud­ing US-based com­pa­ny PRISM, which op­er­ates in pri­vate avi­a­tion. A de­sign­er of Caribbean her­itage who lives in Swe­den al­so trav­elled to Trinidad to par­tic­i­pate, hav­ing worked with the or­gan­is­ers on the show’s de­sign.

Fer­reira said the or­gan­is­ers in­cor­po­rat­ed ideas from ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al ex­hi­bi­tions, in­clud­ing trade fairs in Chi­na, Los An­ge­les and Italy, with the am­bi­tion of de­vel­op­ing Be­yond the Blue­print in­to an event that at­tracts par­tic­i­pants from around the world.

For Fer­reira, the suc­cess of the ex­hi­bi­tion will not be mea­sured sole­ly by at­ten­dance, but by the busi­ness re­la­tion­ships and op­por­tu­ni­ties gen­er­at­ed for ex­hibitors.

Her ob­jec­tive is for par­tic­i­pants to leave with mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions that could lead to com­plet­ed projects, new prod­ucts, in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and fu­ture part­ner­ships.

She said the ex­hi­bi­tion had at­tract­ed a strong group of ex­hibitors, al­though she ex­pect­ed at­ten­dance to in­crease over the week­end as more peo­ple be­came aware of the event.

Ma­haraj al­so wel­comed the pro­posed Blue­print Acad­e­my and Ex­pert Per­cep­tion Re­port, which he be­lieves could help iden­ti­fy skills short­ages, re­cur­ring project de­lays and the re­quire­ments lo­cal busi­ness­es must meet to se­cure larg­er con­tracts.

He said the in­for­ma­tion gath­ered from in­dus­try par­tic­i­pants could help gov­ern­ment bet­ter un­der­stand the chal­lenges fac­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers, pro­fes­sion­als and in­vestors.

The Min­is­ter al­so en­cour­aged busi­ness­es to use the ex­hi­bi­tion to iden­ti­fy part­ners whose ex­per­tise com­ple­ment­ed their own and to un­der­stand what re­gion­al buy­ers re­quired.

Fer­reira ac­knowl­edged that the con­struc­tion in­dus­try could be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a tem­po­rary slow­down, but ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the sit­u­a­tion would not per­sist.