Pres­i­dent of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) Tri­cia Coos­al has met with Cuban Am­bas­sador Tania Diego Olite to dis­cuss trade and oth­er re­lat­ed mat­ters.

She not­ed that the TTMA con­tin­ues to dri­ve its ex­port man­u­fac­tur­ing strat­e­gy via meet­ings with key stake­hold­ers such as the Cuban Em­bassy.

Ex­press­ing con­fi­dence that Cu­ba is a mar­ket of great po­ten­tial for the TTMA, Coos­al said mem­bers are aware of the some­times unique chal­lenges of this mar­ket.

Open di­a­logue via meet­ings with the em­bassy is key to de­vel­op­ing so­lu­tions that are of mu­tu­al ben­e­fit, she said.

The TTMA added that it will con­tin­ue have dis­cus­sions with the Cuban Mis­sion in T&T to fos­ter po­ten­tial re­la­tions that would re­dound to the ben­e­fits of both coun­tries, be it in trade (ex­ports and im­ports in goods and ser­vices), in­vest­ment (joint ven­tures and oth­er col­lab­o­ra­tions) and even tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance.

“Cu­ba has par­tic­i­pat­ed in TTMA’s Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion and is ea­ger to do so once again. TTMA is in dis­cus­sion with the em­bassy to cre­ate oth­er av­enues for ex­changes that will be ben­e­fi­cial to both par­ties,” Coos­al added.

There ex­ist present­ly a Cu­ba-CARI­COM Trade and Eco­nom­ic Agree­ment frame­work which en­sures Cari­com coun­tries and Cu­ba en­joy a tar­iff- free ex­port regime be­tween part­ners on in a num­ber of goods and items.

TTMA em­pha­sised that it firm­ly be­lieves that the Cuban mar­ket, which can be con­sid­ered rel­a­tive­ly un­tapped, is a wor­thy trade des­ti­na­tion, both for ex­port­ing goods and ser­vices as well as sourc­ing des­ti­na­tion for in­puts of raw ma­te­r­i­al for man­u­fac­tur­ing.

TTMA is en­cour­ag­ing mem­bers in­ter­est­ed in the Cuban mar­ket to get in touch with its trade unit at trad­edesk@ttma.com or trade­as­sist@ttma.com.