In re­sponse to so­cial me­dia com­ments on Feb­ru­ary 1, sug­gest­ing pos­si­ble mis­con­duct with­in busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions, the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) is reaf­firm­ing that the coun­try has long-es­tab­lished and proven mech­a­nisms for ad­dress­ing al­le­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing in any pub­lic or pri­vate of­fice or in­sti­tu­tion.

In a post over the week­end, the TTMA was ac­cused of "be­ing rid­dled with crim­i­nals."

In a re­lease is­sued this week, the TTMA strong­ly en­cour­aged any­one with cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion to utilise the ap­pro­pri­ate ju­di­cial and in­ves­tiga­tive process­es to en­sure mat­ters are re­solved in a time­ly and ef­fi­cient man­ner, not­ing that en­gag­ing es­tab­lished chan­nels pro­motes the trans­paren­cy and due process that every cit­i­zen and en­ti­ty in T&T de­serves and re­spects.

"Un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed or neg­a­tive gen­er­al­i­sa­tions are coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. The man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor is a proven 70-year-old en­gine of growth and a key pil­lar in the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of our econ­o­my. Un­der­min­ing con­fi­dence in the sec­tor does a dis­ser­vice to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment at a time when col­lab­o­ra­tion is most need­ed,” TTMA pres­i­dent Dale Par­son stat­ed.

Even as it ad­dressed the re­cent on­line re­marks, the TTMA re­it­er­at­ed its sup­port for the Gov­ern­ment’s stat­ed ob­jec­tive of dou­bling ex­ports from the non-en­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. It de­scribed the tar­get as ful­ly aligned with TTMA’s on­go­ing work to boost ex­port ca­pac­i­ty, strength­en com­pet­i­tive­ness, and se­cure greater for­eign ex­change earn­ings for the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

The lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, which con­tributes 18 per cent to na­tion­al GDP and em­ploys more than 50,000 per­ma­nent work­ers along with 10,000 ca­su­al em­ploy­ees, con­tin­ues to demon­strate re­silience and strong ex­port per­for­mance, the TTMA not­ed, stat­ing that man­u­fac­tur­ers record­ed an 18 per cent in­crease in ex­ports year-on-year, and the sec­ond half of 2025 showed mea­sur­able progress in mar­ket ex­pan­sion, in­no­va­tion, and sup­ply chain sta­bil­i­ty.

He al­so em­pha­sised that while man­u­fac­tur­ers re­main com­mit­ted to push­ing for con­tin­ued ex­port growth, achiev­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s am­bi­tions would re­quire key im­prove­ments in the ease of do­ing busi­ness.

“TTMA has led the charge in in­creas­ing the val­ue of ex­ports from the non-en­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, and we stand ready to con­tin­ue do­ing so for the next five years and be­yond. This progress, how­ev­er, must be sup­port­ed by the Gov­ern­ment meet­ing its com­mit­ments to im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness — par­tic­u­lar­ly through ac­cel­er­at­ed cus­toms digi­ti­sa­tion and elec­tron­ic pay­ments, im­proved trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion ef­fi­cien­cies, and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of long-dis­cussed ad­min­is­tra­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry re­forms: food and drug, Cus­toms, TTBS, etc,” Par­son added.

The TTMA al­so reaf­firmed its recog­ni­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to re­vi­talise the na­tion­al en­er­gy sec­tor.