Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon says the min­istry con­tin­ues to be an ad­vo­cate of the lo­cal fash­ion in­dus­try which is a cat­a­lyst for eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment cre­ation and for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion.

In cit­ing the val­ue of the lo­cal and glob­al gar­ment man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor Gopee-Scoon said dur­ing 2016 to 2021 T&T ex­port­ed over TT$121 mil­lion in gar­ments to var­i­ous des­ti­na­tions.

The min­is­ter made the re­marks while tour­ing the MADE868 Lo­cal Pro­duc­tion Fa­cil­i­ty the at Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) at the John S Don­ald­son Cam­pus Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, last Fri­day.

Gopee-Scoon al­so not­ed that the glob­al ap­par­el mar­ket was es­ti­mat­ed to be more than US$1.5 tril­lion in 2021 and is fore­cast to ex­pand to ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$2 tril­lion by 2026.

The min­is­ter said the fa­cil­i­ty, which was launched ear­li­er this year, is tes­ti­mo­ny of Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to boost­ing the pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty in the fash­ion in­dus­try and has the po­ten­tial to con­tribute to the coun­try’s non-en­er­gy trans­for­ma­tion.

“This state-of-the-art fa­cil­i­ty has the po­ten­tial to place our lo­cal fash­ion in­dus­try on the glob­al fash­ion stage and is the first of its kind in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean,” she added.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Gopee-Scoon said the fa­cil­i­ty al­so serves as a hub for both lo­cal and re­gion­al de­sign­ers who, be­cause of in-house ca­pac­i­ty con­straints, are un­able to ful­fil large or­ders and are seek­ing to in­crease ca­pac­i­ty.

Hence, this av­enue can pro­vide qual­i­ty prod­ucts and in­crease ex­port ac­tiv­i­ties.

“I en­cour­age our fash­ion de­sign­ers, gar­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers and oth­er In­dus­try stake­hold­ers to utilise this fa­cil­i­ty as we seek to build ca­pac­i­ty in the fash­ion in­dus­try and ex­pand our mar­ket share for fash­ion prod­ucts lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly,” Gopee-Scoon said.

The fa­cil­i­ty is a col­lab­o­ra­tive un­der­tak­ing the T&T Fash­ion Com­pa­ny Ltd (Fash­ionTT) and the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT).

The core man­u­fac­tur­ing ser­vices in­clude dig­i­tal fab­ric print­ing, laser cut­ting, 3-D print­ing and the tra­di­tion­al cut­ting and sewing of gar­ments.