The T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vice In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) is com­mit­ted to do­ing its part to take lo­cal busi­ness­es glob­al­ly.

In about three weeks the or­gan­i­sa­tion will launch a dri­ve to grow this coun­try’s ex­port of ser­vices ca­pac­i­ty.

CEO Vashti Guyadeen out­lined de­tails of the TTC­SI’s “Do­ing busi­ness with the World” se­ries sched­uled to com­mence on March 29.

She not­ed that over the pe­ri­od March to Sep­tem­ber 2023, the TTC­SI will host a se­ries of we­bi­na­rs high­light­ing in­for­ma­tion on do­ing busi­ness in 28 coun­tries.

These coun­tries were se­lect­ed based on re­search con­duct­ed by the TTC­SI in 2020 to 2022 and in­cor­po­rates the pri­or­i­ty mar­kets of the 22 firms un­der the Gate­way to Trade Ex­port ac­cel­er­a­tor pro­gramme.

The se­ries will in­clude a week of ac­tiv­i­ties on a par­tic­u­lar coun­try and will in­clude a cul­tur­al di­men­sion where the cui­sine and en­ter­tain­ment of the spe­cif­ic coun­try are high­light­ed—all in a vein to demon­strate the scope and depth of the ser­vices sec­tor, Guyadeen told the Busi­ness Guardian.

Fo­cus will al­so be placed on con­nect­ing firms to buy­ers across the globe as well as fa­cil­i­tat­ing match-mak­ing and joint ven­tures be­tween the firms.

B2B ac­tiv­i­ty will be fa­cil­i­tat­ed us­ing the TTC­SI’s Na­tion­al Ser­vices Ex­porters Por­tal which in a short span is evolv­ing in­to an In­ter­na­tion­al Ser­vices Hub.

The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic is one such mar­ket iden­ti­fied by lo­cal ser­vices firms and providers which can be a lu­cra­tive busi­ness ven­ture.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Guyadeen said based on that coun­try’s suc­cess in tourism and nearshoring, the TTC­SI looks for­ward to ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Al­so, she fur­ther ex­plained that the coali­tion of ser­vices in­dus­tries in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic reached out to the TTC­SI in 2021/2022 to learn about the work­ings of its mem­ber, the T&T Mid­wives As­so­ci­a­tion.

“This rep­re­sents an­oth­er area of col­lab­o­ra­tion,” Guyadeen said, adding that it will able be ide­al in help­ing to break the lan­guage bar­ri­ers and fo­cus on ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est which can fur­ther pro­pel busi­ness.

The Busi­ness Guardian al­so reached out to the Am­bas­sador of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic Welling­ton Ben­cosme who praised the TTC­SI on what he de­scribed as a “very rel­e­vant and proac­tive ini­tia­tive.”

He ex­plained the part­ner­ship will en­tail the DR work­ing with Gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor, through part­ner­ships, to­wards a com­mon goal of deep­en­ing com­mer­cial re­la­tions be­tween both coun­tries and the Caribbean re­gion, to gen­er­ate in­creased op­por­tu­ni­ties for cit­i­zens.

“The shar­ing of ex­pe­ri­ences and rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion is an in­valu­able ex­er­cise, and as it per­tains to ser­vices, which rep­re­sents 60 per cent of the econ­o­my and 83 per cent of the work­force.

“The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic is ea­ger to share our suc­cess sto­ries in ar­eas such as tourism, busi­ness and pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy, and cul­tur­al and cre­ative sec­tor,” Ben­cosme said.

He em­pha­sised that tourism is a pil­lar of the DR’s econ­o­my, which rep­re­sents a third of its growth of GDP, av­er­ag­ing five per cent, dou­ble the re­gion­al av­er­age, with the ar­rival of 7.2 mil­lion tourists by air in 2022, thus reach­ing a “his­toric record”, and “un­prece­dent­ed” ar­rival of 1.3 mil­lion cruise pas­sen­gers through the dif­fer­ent ports of the coun­try, for a to­tal 8.5 mil­lion vis­i­tors, and gen­er­at­ing US$8,406.5 mil­lion.

In recog­ni­tion of its lead­ing sta­tus as a re­silient des­ti­na­tion de­spite the pan­dem­ic, in 2022 the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic was the fo­cus of the first UN World Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion In­vest­ment Guide­lines pub­li­ca­tion, high­light­ing the favourable con­di­tions for for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment and its val­ue propo­si­tion as one of the most at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tions in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, and a re­gion­al tourism leader.

Em­pha­sis­ing the role of the ser­vices sec­tor Guyadeen main­tained it can be key in boost­ing di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts.

The TTC­SI is con­vinced that a whole of gov­ern­ment ap­proach is nec­es­sary to de­vel­op the en­abling en­vi­ron­ment for ser­vices ex­porters to thrive.

Ac­cord­ing to Guyadeen, the sec­tor em­ployed over 85 per cent of the labour force in 2017 and con­tributed 58 per cent to re­al GDP in 2018 but on­ly ac­count­ed for an es­ti­mat­ed eight per cent of ex­port earn­ings in 2017.

She added the sec­tor there­fore, has sig­nif­i­cant scope for growth in ex­port gen­er­a­tion, not­ing that de­vel­op­ments in in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy (ICT) have made it much eas­i­er to per­form ser­vices for clients any­where in the world.

How­ev­er, as the da­ta shows, T&T has not been able to max­imise ser­vice ex­ports.

Guyadeen said to ad­dress the chal­lenges of in­creas­ing ser­vice ex­ports sev­er­al fac­tors must be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion.

For in­stance, she ad­vised poli­cies must be craft­ed to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­pan­sion of ser­vices ex­ports which can be dif­fi­cult giv­en the lack of cur­rent dis­ag­gre­gat­ed da­ta pre­vent­ing a thor­ough analy­sis of the cur­rent sta­tus of ser­vices ex­ports, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to de­vel­op suit­able poli­cies.

Al­so, Guyadeen said ex­port pro­mo­tion agen­cies do not have enough in­for­ma­tion to prop­er­ly pro­mote ser­vice providers and pre­pare them to ex­ploit suit­able mar­kets.

Third­ly, she said many ser­vice providers do not have a plat­form to show­case their work.

She added that the Na­tion­al Ser­vices Ex­porters Por­tal built by the TTC­SI in Sep­tem­ber 2022 will go a long way in track­ing the per­for­mance of the firms reg­is­tered on the por­tal.

In Sep­tem­ber 2021, the TTC­SI be­gan an in­ten­sive ex­port ac­cel­er­a­tor pro­gramme called Gate­way to Trade to de­vel­op the ex­port ca­pac­i­ty of rough­ly 80 ser­vice firms with demon­strat­ed ex­port po­ten­tial. These firms were drawn from busi­ness and events tourism, busi­ness and pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices and en­er­gy ser­vices.

About “Do­ing busi­ness with the World”

Sched­uled launch at Hilton on April 5 or 10, 2023

We­bi­na­rs will be host­ed every fort­night com­menc­ing March 29 in­clud­ing “Do­ing Busi­ness with Ja­maica.”

Twen­ty-eight coun­tries will be cov­ered based on ge­o­graph­ic re­gion.

These in­clude Do­ing Busi­ness in Latin Amer­i­ca (nine coun­tries), Do­ing Busi­ness in the Caribbean and South Amer­i­ca (six coun­tries), Do­ing Busi­ness in Eu­rope (three coun­tries), Do­ing Busi­ness in Africa (two coun­tries) Do­ing Busi­ness in Asia (four coun­tries) Do­ing Busi­ness in North Amer­i­ca (three coun­tries) and Do­ing Busi­ness in the Unit­ed King­dom.