RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ial De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NED­CO) CEO Dan­ny Ma­haraj says the state agency is step­ping up its dri­ve to help mi­cro and small en­tre­pre­neurs ex­pand their busi­ness­es, with op­por­tu­ni­ties emerg­ing for T&T com­pa­nies to en­ter the Cana­di­an mar­ket.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ma­haraj said the agency is run­ning a na­tion­al cam­paign to make fi­nanc­ing, busi­ness train­ing, and men­tor­ship more ac­ces­si­ble to en­tre­pre­neurs seek­ing to grow lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly, and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Ma­haraj said the agency was ready to pro­vide sup­port and link­ages to mi­cro and small busi­ness­es.

He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion want­ed to help lo­cal busi­ness­es es­tab­lish con­nec­tions in in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets, in­clud­ing Cana­da.

“We want our prod­ucts on the shelves of busi­ness­es in Cana­da,” Ma­haraj said.

He not­ed that NED­CO pro­vides loan fi­nanc­ing of up to $250,000 for mi­cro and small busi­ness­es, adding, “As­sis­tance ex­tends be­yond fi­nanc­ing to in­clude busi­ness ad­vi­so­ry ser­vices, train­ing and men­tor­ship.”

“It’s more of a full-ser­vice op­er­a­tion,” he said.

Mean­while, NED­CO chair­man Ken Lakhan said the or­gan­i­sa­tion was al­so part­ner­ing with young en­tre­pre­neurs with busi­ness ideas from the in­cep­tion through to busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and lat­er ex­pan­sion.

“If you have ideas, we can guide you along from the be­gin­ning to the end of your start-up pe­ri­od,” he said.

He not­ed that NED­CO of­fi­cers would al­so mon­i­tor busi­ness­es af­ter they were es­tab­lished, help­ing en­tre­pre­neurs to grow. Both men spoke to Guardian Me­dia at a Meet and Greet event at the Gulf View Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Tues­day with Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Michael Callan, who out­lined op­por­tu­ni­ties for T&T busi­ness­es seek­ing to ac­cess the Cana­di­an mar­ket.

The event high­light­ed the po­ten­tial for lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers to use part­ner­ships and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket ac­cess to ex­pand their busi­ness­es while bring­ing for­eign ex­change earn­ings back to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Among the en­tre­pre­neurs at­tend­ing was First Gen­er­a­tion Pets Ltd co-founder Kristin Nar­ine, whose com­pa­ny pro­duces biodegrad­able to­fu cat lit­ter and pet sup­ple­ments.

Nar­ine said Cana­da rep­re­sent­ed a sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ty for the lo­cal brand, adding there was room for the prod­uct in the mar­ket.

Mean­while, CEO of Vista Do­ra­do Es­tates Mark For­ge­nie, who re­vived the pop­u­lar Moru­ga Hill Rice, said his com­pa­ny was pre­pared to ex­plore the Cana­di­an op­por­tu­ni­ty.

He said dis­cus­sions were ex­pect­ed on es­tab­lish­ing a ware­house in Cana­da so cus­tomers could re­ceive the prod­uct di­rect­ly.

“Peo­ple in Cana­da want the Hill Rice, and we are ea­ger to get it on su­per­mar­ket shelves,” For­ge­nie said

On Tues­day, High Com­mis­sion­er Callan said Cana­di­an busi­ness­es were show­ing grow­ing in­ter­est in Trinidad and To­ba­go, with man­u­fac­tur­ers and oth­er lo­cal com­pa­nies be­ing of­fered greater op­por­tu­ni­ties to en­ter the Cana­di­an mar­ket large­ly tar­iff-free.