WASH­ING­TON DC

T&T is emerg­ing as a crit­i­cal hub in Philip Mor­ris In­ter­na­tion­al’s (PMI) shift to­wards smoke-free prod­ucts, po­si­tion­ing the coun­try at the cen­tre of a re­gion­al tran­si­tion that could re­shape dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works, in­vest­ment flows, and reg­u­la­to­ry pri­or­i­ties across the Caribbean.

As PMI charges to­wards its am­bi­tious glob­al tar­get of de­riv­ing two-thirds of its rev­enue from smoke-free prod­ucts by 2030, the im­pli­ca­tions are be­ing felt acute­ly in T&T, where lo­cal busi­ness­es, dis­trib­u­tors, and pol­i­cy­mak­ers are be­ing drawn in­to the com­pa­ny’s long-term strate­gic piv­ot.

For Caribbean busi­ness­es cur­rent­ly serv­ing as dis­trib­u­tors or part­ners, many of which op­er­ate with­in or through Trinidad and To­ba­go, this shift rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal change in how growth and cap­i­tal al­lo­ca­tion will be ap­proached over the next decade.

Rather than view­ing this tran­si­tion as a threat to im­me­di­ate rev­enue, An­drés Es­pinal, di­rec­tor of ex­ter­nal af­fairs for Cari­com, frames the evo­lu­tion as a path­way to­wards sus­tain­able, long-term ex­pan­sion.

By cen­tring op­er­a­tions in T&T, PMI in­tends to use T&T as a spring­board for its smoke-free port­fo­lio across the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty, lever­ag­ing the coun­try’s lo­gis­tics ca­pac­i­ty, in­fra­struc­ture, and rel­a­tive­ly sta­ble in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment.

While con­ven­tion­al to­bac­co prod­ucts still meet the de­mand of cur­rent adult smok­ers, the phased in­tro­duc­tion of al­ter­na­tives al­lows part­ners to strate­gi­cal­ly rein­vest in new ca­pa­bil­i­ties, such as spe­cialised re­tail for­mats and con­sumer ed­u­ca­tion.

With­in this re­gion­al strat­e­gy, T&T has emerged as a crit­i­cal fo­cal point for PMI’s am­bi­tions, as the com­pa­ny views this coun­try not just as a mar­ket, but as a strate­gi­cal­ly im­por­tant hub for the wider Cari­com re­gion.

“Our smoke-free prod­ucts are al­ready present in mar­kets such as the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Aru­ba, Cu­raçao, and Trinidad and To­ba­go. We view T&T as a strate­gi­cal­ly im­por­tant hub with­in Cari­com, a coun­try where we see in­vest­ments, have le­gal se­cu­ri­ty, high­ly qual­i­fied tal­ents and high­ly com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tages, in terms of pub­lic and pri­vate in­fra­struc­ture, lo­gis­tics and small bur­dens of bu­reau­cra­cy.

“For lo­cal dis­trib­u­tors and busi­ness part­ners, this tran­si­tion rep­re­sents an op­por­tu­ni­ty for sus­tain­able, long-term growth rather than a dis­rup­tion. While con­ven­tion­al prod­ucts will con­tin­ue to play a role in meet­ing cur­rent adult smok­er de­mand, the grad­ual ex­pan­sion of smoke-free al­ter­na­tives al­lows part­ners to plan cap­i­tal al­lo­ca­tion more ef­fi­cient­ly, in­vest­ing in ca­pa­bil­i­ties such as con­sumer ed­u­ca­tion, trade en­gage­ment, and spe­cialised re­tail for­mats.

“By align­ing close­ly with mar­ket re­al­i­ties, reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works, and PMI’s phased port­fo­lio evo­lu­tion, part­ners can pro­gres­sive­ly adapt their busi­ness mod­els and man­age the tran­si­tion with­out un­due short-term volatil­i­ty,” Es­pinal ex­plained to the Busi­ness Guardian when asked how Caribbean busi­ness­es align their busi­ness mod­els with this “smoke-free” tran­si­tion with­out fac­ing im­me­di­ate rev­enue volatil­i­ty, as PMI has been clear about its goal to de­rive two-thirds of rev­enue from smoke-free prod­ucts by 2030.

The com­mit­ment to the re­gion was fur­ther un­der­scored last year with the for­ma­tion of the Philip Mor­ris CCA clus­ter, which brings the Caribbean, Cen­tral Amer­i­can, and An­dean mar­kets un­der a sin­gle op­er­a­tional um­brel­la. For T&T, this re­or­gan­i­sa­tion sig­nals a deep­en­ing of the coun­try’s role with­in PMI’s re­gion­al struc­ture and a po­ten­tial in­crease in strate­gic im­por­tance.

Ac­cord­ing to Marisa Bernard, man­ag­er of ex­ter­nal af­fairs for Philip Mor­ris TT (PMTT), one of the im­me­di­ate ob­jec­tives of this new struc­ture is to di­ver­si­fy prod­uct of­fer­ings for adult smok­ers who are look­ing for al­ter­na­tives with re­duced ex­po­sure to harm.

“This is a sig­nif­i­cant com­mit­ment by PMI to this re­gion and to the de­vel­op­ment of its mar­kets and peo­ple. This ini­tia­tive rep­re­sents an im­por­tant step in the de­vel­op­ment of T&T as a strength­ened hub for the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty. One im­me­di­ate plan is to di­ver­si­fy prod­uct of­fer­ings for adult smok­ers seek­ing al­ter­na­tives with re­duced ex­po­sure harm and en­sur­ing the re­spon­si­ble com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of that port­fo­lio,” she fur­ther ex­plained.

The suc­cess of this strat­e­gy is al­ready be­ing mea­sured lo­cal­ly. Since the in­tro­duc­tion of the smoke-free al­ter­na­tive VEEV NOW in 2023, more than 2.5 mil­lion cig­a­rettes have gone un­lit in Trinidad and To­ba­go, point­ing to ear­ly shifts in con­sumer be­hav­iour with­in the do­mes­tic mar­ket.

VEEV is a brand of elec­tron­ic cig­a­rettes (vapes) and e-liq­uid pods man­u­fac­tured by Philip Mor­ris In­ter­na­tion­al (PMI).

It of­fers both recharge­able pod sys­tems (VEEV ONE) and dis­pos­able vapes (VEEV NOW), fea­tur­ing ce­ram­ic heat­ing tech­nol­o­gy de­signed to re­duce burnt taste and en­hance con­sis­ten­cy.

VEEV is con­sid­ered a smoke-free al­ter­na­tive de­signed for adult smok­ers.

How­ev­er, achiev­ing this “smoke-free fu­ture” in Trinidad and To­ba­go re­quires nav­i­gat­ing a com­plex reg­u­la­to­ry land­scape that was large­ly de­signed for an ear­li­er era of to­bac­co con­trol.

Many cur­rent to­bac­co con­trol poli­cies were de­vel­oped decades ago to com­bat com­bust­ed to­bac­co and do not ful­ly ac­count for mod­ern tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments.

Prod­ucts such as heat­ed to­bac­co (HTPs), e-cig­a­rettes, and nico­tine pouch­es of­fer a dif­fer­ent risk pro­file than tra­di­tion­al cig­a­rettes, yet many gov­ern­ments, in­clud­ing in T&T, con­tin­ue to adopt pro­hi­bi­tion­ist stances or ap­ply sim­i­lar tax­a­tion lev­els as com­bustible prod­ucts.

Es­pinal not­ed that the ef­fec­tive­ness of these poli­cies should be judged by their ac­tu­al im­pact on smok­ing preva­lence, point­ing out that re­gions al­low­ing ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion about smoke-free al­ter­na­tives have seen un­prece­dent­ed de­clines in smok­ing.

In mar­kets like T&T, where reg­u­la­tors lean heav­i­ly on the WHO Frame­work Con­ven­tion on To­bac­co Con­trol, bridg­ing the gap be­tween in­dus­try sci­ence and reg­u­la­to­ry scep­ti­cism re­mains a per­sis­tent chal­lenge.

“Tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments have led to the cre­ation of less harm­ful smoke-free prod­ucts (SF­Ps), such as heat­ed to­bac­co prod­ucts (HTPs), e-cig­a­rettes, and nico­tine pouch­es, which can pos­i­tive­ly im­pact pub­lic health.

“How­ev­er, sev­er­al gov­ern­ments and pub­lic health or­gan­i­sa­tions are miss­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty by adopt­ing a pro­hi­bi­tion­ist stance and tax­a­tion to­wards these prod­ucts or treat­ing them the same as cig­a­rettes. In con­trast, re­gions that al­low ac­cess to and pro­vide in­for­ma­tion about SF­Ps are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing un­prece­dent­ed de­clines in smok­ing preva­lence. The ef­fec­tive­ness of to­bac­co con­trol poli­cies should ide­al­ly be mea­sured by their im­pact on smok­ing preva­lence.

“Mis­in­for­ma­tion is an­oth­er com­mon chal­lenge, es­pe­cial­ly in small­er mar­kets like the Caribbean. Many peo­ple still be­lieve that smoke-free al­ter­na­tives and com­bust­ed cig­a­rettes are the same. Mis­in­for­ma­tion can po­ten­tial­ly stop adult smok­ers from switch­ing to these al­ter­na­tives and con­tin­ue smok­ing tra­di­tion­al cig­a­rettes,” Es­pinal ad­vised.

Bernard fur­ther em­pha­sised that the on­ly way for­ward is through open, con­struc­tive di­a­logue be­tween health au­thor­i­ties and the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty.

She ar­gued that stake­hold­ers must ap­proach the sci­ence be­hind smoke-free prod­ucts with­out pre­con­ceived po­si­tions to fos­ter an in­formed con­sen­sus.

This di­a­logue is in­tend­ed to help gov­ern­ments in T&T and across the re­gion find a bal­ance be­tween pro­vid­ing smok­ers with ac­cess to less harm­ful al­ter­na­tives and main­tain­ing re­stric­tions on the most harm­ful form of nico­tine con­sump­tion—com­bustible cig­a­rettes.

Be­yond reg­u­la­tion, the bat­tle for a smoke-free Caribbean is al­so be­ing fought against a tide of mis­in­for­ma­tion.

In small­er mar­kets such as T&T, a com­mon hur­dle is the per­sis­tent be­lief that smoke-free al­ter­na­tives car­ry the same risks as tra­di­tion­al cig­a­rettes. This lack of clar­i­ty can pre­vent adult smok­ers from switch­ing to po­ten­tial­ly less harm­ful op­tions, lead­ing them to con­tin­ue smok­ing tra­di­tion­al to­bac­co.

To com­bat this, PMI is util­is­ing con­sumer in­sights and da­ta—sim­i­lar to the re­search be­ing de­buted on US smok­er seg­ments—but adapt­ing them to the spe­cif­ic cul­tur­al and pur­chas­ing pow­er re­al­i­ties of the Caribbean. Bernard ex­plains that each mar­ket re­quires a tai­lored ap­proach to en­sure that prod­uct of­fer­ings are re­spon­si­bly aligned with both lo­cal reg­u­la­tions and pub­lic health goals.

This lo­calised ap­proach is es­sen­tial be­cause even as PMI shifts its rev­enue fo­cus to­wards new tech­nolo­gies, it can­not ig­nore the eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties of ex­ist­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In emerg­ing mar­kets, many re­tail­ers re­ly on the high-vol­ume move­ment of con­ven­tion­al prod­ucts to re­main vi­able.

Bernard ac­knowl­edged that while the port­fo­lio of smoke-free prod­ucts is ex­pand­ing and more smok­ers are switch­ing, it re­mains im­por­tant to meet the cur­rent de­mand of those who have not yet tran­si­tioned.

This dual-track strat­e­gy—main­tain­ing the tra­di­tion­al mar­ket while ag­gres­sive­ly en­cour­ag­ing the shift to low­er-risk al­ter­na­tives—is de­signed to pre­vent rev­enue volatil­i­ty for lo­cal part­ners while un­der­min­ing the il­lic­it mar­ket for con­ven­tion­al cig­a­rettes.

“Giv­en the pres­ence of an il­lic­it mar­ket for con­ven­tion­al cig­a­rettes, it re­mains im­por­tant to con­tin­ue meet­ing the cur­rent de­mand of adult smok­ers, while con­sis­tent­ly en­cour­ag­ing them to tran­si­tion to low­er-risk al­ter­na­tives,” she stat­ed.

The depth of these dis­cus­sions was a pri­ma­ry dri­ver for Tech­no­va­tion 2026, PMI’s glob­al con­fer­ence held in Wash­ing­ton DC.

The event brought to­geth­er sci­en­tists, me­dia, and in­dus­try ex­perts from April 13 to 14 at the Hamil­ton Ho­tel to ex­plore how in­no­va­tion could be har­nessed to de­liv­er pub­lic health and eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits.

By host­ing these con­ver­sa­tions in a glob­al po­lit­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic hub like Wash­ing­ton DC, PMI sought to en­sure that the tran­si­tion to­wards risk-re­duced prod­ucts is un­der­stood not just as a cor­po­rate goal, but as a crit­i­cal pub­lic health op­por­tu­ni­ty.

For T&T, the im­pli­ca­tions are im­me­di­ate: how reg­u­la­tors re­spond, how busi­ness­es adapt, and how con­sumers shift be­hav­iour will de­ter­mine whether the coun­try ful­ly cap­tures the eco­nom­ic and pub­lic health ben­e­fits of this tran­si­tion, or faces pro­longed un­cer­tain­ty in a rapid­ly evolv­ing mar­ket.