GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Amid the rag­ing pan­dem­ic and the sec­ond shut­down in two years, Wit­co up­grad­ed its plant op­er­a­tions and up-skilled its hu­man re­source – an in­vest­ment val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $85 mil­lion, the com­pa­ny’s man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Lau­rent Mef­fre said.

Speak­ing at the fac­to­ry’s recom­mis­sion­ing and rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny held at the com­pa­ny’s com­pound at Champ Fleurs yes­ter­day, Mef­fre said de­spite the un­cer­tain­ties T&T was fac­ing the ini­tia­tive “re­mains a clear demon­stra­tion” of Wit­co’s com­mit­ment to the re­cov­ery and growth of the coun­try, adding that it un­der­pins Wit­co’s strong be­lief in the “Made in T&T” both for do­mes­tic con­sump­tion and ex­ports.

Ac­cord­ing to Mef­fre as a man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­port hub for the Caribbean, 54 per cent of Wit­co’s man­u­fac­tured vol­ume is ex­port­ed re­gion­al­ly, gen­er­at­ing US$20 mil­lion in for­eign ex­change an­nu­al­ly.

“Wit­co is an in­sti­tu­tion in the eco­nom­ic land­scape of this coun­try and, in good times and in bad, we are here to stay,” Mef­fre em­pha­sised.

Fur­ther, he added that Wit­co has al­ways been sup­port­ive of the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic agen­da and the Gov­ern­ment.

Wit­co’s man­u­fac­tur­ing man­ag­er, Taran Per­sad, al­so not­ed that like many oth­er busi­ness­es in the sec­tor, the last two years posed un­prece­dent­ed chal­lenges to the com­pa­ny’s op­er­a­tions.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that in this chal­leng­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment the com­pa­ny has been able to ex­hib­it the “grit to forge” ahead, by first­ly main­tain­ing full ad­her­ence to all COVID-19 pro­to­cols to as­sure the safe­ty of em­ploy­ees, while at the same time en­sur­ing that all mar­kets con­tin­ued to be sup­plied on time in full, avoid­ing any stock out­ages and the trig­ger­ing of cost­ly ex­ter­nal con­tin­gency sup­ply sources.

Per­sad ex­plained that the op­er­a­tions team utilised the in­te­grat­ed work sys­tem mod­el to fos­ter a cul­ture of “to­tal em­ploy­ee own­er­ship and a ze­ro-loss mind­set” to de­liv­er im­prove­ments year on year in key per­for­mance ar­eas, in­clud­ing over­all equip­ment ef­fec­tive­ness, qual­i­ty im­prove­ment and waste re­duc­tion with the sole aim of pro­vid­ing the best val­ue cus­tomers.

Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon, who al­so spoke, said a strong man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor cre­ates a sure path to eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty.

She added that T&T’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor is a long-stand­ing and im­por­tant pil­lar of eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, con­tribut­ing to GDP and job cre­ation.

Ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice, in 2021, the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor con­tributed just over $26 bil­lion (or 18 per cent) to the over­all GDP, the min­istry cit­ed.

How­ev­er, Gopee-Scoon said if T&T is to re­main com­pet­i­tive, con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in man­u­fac­tur­ing is es­sen­tial.

“We need in­vest­ment in cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy and in poli­cies and prac­tices that are pro­gres­sive and in line with glob­al stan­dards. As busi­ness mod­els evolve,” she added.

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