An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) Moth­er’s Day Pop-Up Shop drew large crowds at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Ma­coya over the week­end, with or­gan­is­ers say­ing the event has al­ready out­grown the venue due to over­whelm­ing de­mand.

TTMA chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dr Ramesh Ramdeen said the re­sponse to the an­nu­al ini­tia­tive far ex­ceed­ed ca­pac­i­ty, with all vend­ing spaces tak­en with­in hours of reg­is­tra­tion open­ing months in ad­vance.

“This pop-up shop was so suc­cess­ful. We an­nounced it about three months ago at 9 o’clock in the morn­ing. We opened it up, and by about 11.30 to 12 o’clock it was sold out. It is over-sub­scribed. We have out­grown the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, which is the on­ly place that can ac­com­mo­date 90-odd ven­dors. We have about 92 ven­dors in­side here,” he said.

The event fea­tured small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es show­cas­ing lo­cal­ly made prod­ucts, with shop­pers turn­ing out in sig­nif­i­cant num­bers to pur­chase gifts ahead of Moth­er’s Day.

“It’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty for SMEs to show­case their of­fer­ings to Trinidad and To­ba­go, and, of course, for moth­ers to come and get a nice gift for Moth­er’s Day. En­try is free. The ven­dors pay about $450 to ex­hib­it, and that takes care of every­thing for them,” Ramdeen added.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr David Lee al­so toured the event, high­light­ing the TTMA’s role in pro­mot­ing ex­ports and sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

“I’m a busi­ness­man first­ly, so I’ve al­ways been around TTMA. I think they do tremen­dous work as an or­gan­i­sa­tion. They pro­file the coun­try in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. They just came back from a trip to In­dia, and I heard it was very suc­cess­ful,” he said.

“It works well for our coun­try in terms of at­tract­ing in­vest­ment, but al­so in grow­ing ex­ports in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, which is need­ed to gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change out­side of oil and gas. I am hap­py to part­ner with them and be here this morn­ing at this Moth­er’s Day pop-up.”

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed, the venue was bustling with ac­tiv­i­ty as pa­trons moved be­tween booths brows­ing and mak­ing pur­chas­es.

Nicole Per­ry of That Sew U said it was her first time par­tic­i­pat­ing in the event and de­scribed ear­ly sales as en­cour­ag­ing, with steady foot traf­fic through­out the day.

Lin­di Jor­dan, own­er of Aquar­i­an Lega­cy Win­ery, said she has tak­en part since the event be­gan and was ex­pect­ing strong re­turns, cit­ing re­peat cus­tomers and con­sis­tent turnout.

Sinead McIn­tosh, co-own­er of Ice Jew­ellery TT, said the brand saw strong de­mand for its 316 stain­less steel pieces and plans to re­turn next year.