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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

T&T Chamber president: SMEs can learn from successful nationals

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20140709

Small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) make an im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion to T&T's econ­o­my and in­creased em­pha­sis must be placed on their sus­tain­able growth, Mooni­lal Lalchan, pres­i­dent of the T&T Cham­ber of Com­merce, said yes­ter­day."Ac­cord­ing to the draft SME pol­i­cy for T&T, SMEs con­tribute to 28 per cent of the gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP). They rep­re­sent more than 20,000 en­ter­pris­es, em­ploy 200,000 per­sons and make up 85 per cent of all reg­is­tered busi­ness­es.

"Giv­en these sta­tis­tics and un­der­stand­ing that SMEs are the high­est po­ten­tial growth and em­ploy­ment source, and we have placed on our strate­gic agen­da the de­vel­op­ment of the SME sec­tor," he told par­tic­i­pants at the Cham­ber's two-day SME con­fer­ence at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.Lalchan ad­mit­ted that mak­ing SMEs sus­tain­able was "a goal dif­fi­cult to re­alise as we live in an era of rapid change."

He said: "More than ever, SMEs have to de­vel­op, co-ex­ist and thrive in a dig­i­tal, bor­der­less, high­ly com­pet­i­tive and green­er world. It is im­per­a­tive that these busi­ness­es take ad­van­tage of learn­ing new tech­nolo­gies from more ex­pe­ri­enced na­tion­als and mul­ti-na­tion­als, giv­ing them the com­pet­i­tive edge and op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­ter new mar­kets re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly."Lalchan said SME's could learn from T&T na­tion­als who have lived abroad and are suc­cess­ful.

"So we can all grow our en­ter­pris­es from a small op­er­a­tion run from our garage to launch­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al IPO. I am sure you all know the sto­ry of Face­book, so you know this is quite pos­si­ble for in­no­va­tion and job cre­ation ca­pac­i­ty. To grow and be­come more com­pet­i­tive, we must look at how larg­er or­gan­i­sa­tions and how the Gov­ern­ment can look at SMEs and what they need, which is a more busi­ness-friend­ly en­vi­ron­ment, less red tape, bet­ter and more var­ied ac­cess to fi­nance and few­er ob­sta­cles to cross bor­der ac­tiv­i­ty," he said.

Jerome Cham­bers, chair­man of the Cham­ber's No­va com­mit­tee, urged SMEs to think big."For every prob­lem or need that you can iden­ti­fy in the mar­ket, cre­ate a so­lu­tion that is unique­ly you, unique­ly Caribbean. Just do not make sug­ar cake, cre­ate sug­ar­cake.com, or how about a nut­meg in­fused tea?" he sug­gest­ed.


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