Di­anne Joseph

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries re­cent­ly marked a his­toric mile­stone with the spec­tac­u­lar re­launch of Na­tion­al Ser­vices Week (Sep­tem­ber 6-12), an­chor­ing our strate­gic vi­sion un­der the am­bi­tious ban­ner, “Map­ping Growth Be­yond En­er­gy: 50/50 by 2030.”

As Pres­i­dent of the TTC­SI, it was my dis­tinct ho­n­our to wel­come a room filled with bril­liant in­no­va­tors, ded­i­cat­ed pro­fes­sion­als, and fu­ture lead­ers to our Ser­vices Week Sem­i­nar and Na­tion­al Awards Cer­e­mo­ny. The mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion served as a de­fin­i­tive de­c­la­ra­tion of our na­tion's eco­nom­ic evo­lu­tion, show­cas­ing our de­ter­mi­na­tion to dri­ve the lo­cal ser­vices sec­tor to stand as a fierce, in­de­pen­dent, and ex­port-ori­ent­ed en­gine along­side our tra­di­tion­al en­er­gy mar­kets. For too long, our eco­nom­ic nar­ra­tive has been dom­i­nat­ed by oil and gas; how­ev­er, the re­al­i­ty of our cur­rent land­scape de­mands a bold, cal­cu­lat­ed shift to­ward struc­tur­al di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

The ser­vices sec­tor is no longer a sec­ondary play­er in our eco­nom­ic land­scape, as it al­ready ac­counts for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 60 per cent of our na­tion­al Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct (GDP) and serves as the pri­ma­ry en­gine of em­ploy­ment for our cit­i­zens.

Our man­date at the TTC­SI is not to build this vast ecosys­tem from scratch, but rather to un­leash its full po­ten­tial by mak­ing our di­verse lo­cal tal­ent more pro­duc­tive, high­ly in­no­v­a­tive, and ag­gres­sive­ly fo­cused on glob­al mar­kets. Achiev­ing our “50/50 by 2030” as­pi­ra­tion means cre­at­ing a per­fect­ly bal­anced ex­port econ­o­my where non-en­er­gy ser­vices match the eco­nom­ic foot­print of our ex­trac­tion in­dus­tries.

This tran­si­tion does not re­quire phys­i­cal ship­ping con­tain­ers or com­plex mar­itime lo­gis­tics; it re­lies en­tire­ly on the pow­er­ful as­sets we al­ready pos­sess in abun­dance: our hu­man cap­i­tal, bril­liant pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­tise, in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, and rapid­ly ex­pand­ing dig­i­tal ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

From ar­chi­tects and soft­ware de­vel­op­ers to en­gi­neers and cre­ative pro­fes­sion­als, a ser­vices ex­port is pow­ered by the bound­less ca­pac­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go's minds. By dri­ving these knowl­edge-based ex­ports, we ac­tive­ly di­ver­si­fy our for­eign ex­change earn­ings, fos­ter world-class en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and build an un­shake­able foun­da­tion of na­tion­al eco­nom­ic re­silience.

At the core of the TTC­SI’s phi­los­o­phy is the firm be­lief that pub­lic recog­ni­tion is a pow­er­ful cat­a­lyst for strate­gic growth. We are stead­fast in our de­ter­mi­na­tion to rec­og­nize mem­ber in­sti­tu­tions and in­di­vid­u­als for out­stand­ing per­for­mance, be­cause we know that mean­ing­ful re­ward is the ul­ti­mate form of mo­ti­va­tion and in­spi­ra­tion.

By cel­e­brat­ing those who have bro­ken through op­er­a­tional bar­ri­ers and achieved world-class stan­dards, we in­ject an es­sen­tial en­er­gy in­to the en­tire busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, set­ting a bench­mark that in­spires oth­ers to el­e­vate their own per­for­mance.

Over the past year, our ex­cep­tion­al mem­ber com­pa­nies and as­so­ci­a­tions have el­e­vat­ed their or­gan­i­sa­tion­al brand­ing and achieved spec­tac­u­lar mile­stones in fi­nan­cial per­for­mance, prov­ing that re­silience and strate­gic growth go hand-in-hand. This re­mark­able suc­cess is a di­rect tes­ta­ment to the vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship and the un­tir­ing, ded­i­cat­ed staff with­in each or­gan­i­sa­tion who push the bound­aries of ex­cel­lence dai­ly.

Our high­est praise be­longs to the mag­nif­i­cent pi­o­neers, in­no­va­tors, and vi­sion­ar­ies ho­n­oured at the Na­tion­al Ser­vices Awards. These cham­pi­ons have proven that lo­cal ex­per­tise can seam­less­ly tran­scend ge­o­graph­i­cal bor­ders, dom­i­nate in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets, and com­mand glob­al re­spect. Tak­ing win­ner's row were:

* Best use of In­no­va­tion in Ser­vices Award - Com­pa­ny - Din­gole Ltd;

* Best emerg­ing ser­vice provider award - Just Kidz Emer­gency Med­ical;

* Ser­vice provider of the year - Con­sult­ing En­gi­neers As­so­ciates 2005 Ltd;

* Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion of the year – Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of TT (HRMATT);

* Young ser­vice en­tre­pre­neur of the year - Your Every­thing Sup­pli­ers;

* Ser­vice ex­porter of the year - Con­sult­ing En­gi­neers As­so­ciates 2005;

* Lawrence Placide ex­cel­lence in ser­vices award - Re­gency Re­cruit­ment & Re­sources;

* Best use of in­no­va­tion in ser­vices - HRMATT;

* Most par­tic­i­pa­tive as­so­ci­a­tion award – In­ter­na­tion­al Fa­cil­i­ties Man­age­ment - Caribbean Chap­ter;

* Most par­tic­i­pa­tive com­pa­ny award - Mi­cro Soft­ware De­signs;

* Most im­proved com­pa­ny award - GIS­CAD;

* Most im­proved as­so­ci­a­tion award - As­so­ci­a­tion of Re­al Es­tate Agents (AREA)

These win­ners rep­re­sent the true ar­chi­tects of our “Be­yond En­er­gy” fu­ture, and their bril­liance must now in­spire the en­tire ser­vices sec­tor to reach new, un­prece­dent­ed heights. The suc­cess of Na­tion­al Ser­vices Week al­so un­der­scores the pow­er of ro­bust pub­lic-pri­vate col­lab­o­ra­tion.

I must ex­tend my deep­est per­son­al ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment, and Tourism for their con­tin­ued pol­i­cy align­ment and com­mend them on their ex­cel­lent work since as­sum­ing of­fice. My pro­found grat­i­tude al­so goes out to our phe­nom­e­nal Board of Di­rec­tors and the hard­work­ing staff of the TTC­SI, whose tire­less com­mit­ment and strate­gic fore­sight set the stage for the suc­cess­ful host­ing. Fur­ther­more, I must thank the Di­rec­tors and staff of my own as­so­ci­a­tion, the Co-op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union League of Trinidad and To­ba­go, for their full sup­port of my work at the helm of the TTC­SI.

My deep­est thanks go to the ex­cep­tion­al, ex­pert pan­elists who gra­cious­ly shared their in­valu­able in­sights and strate­gic fore­sight dur­ing our sem­i­nar ses­sions. Their col­lec­tive wis­dom acts as the cat­a­lyst we need to map our growth, chal­leng­ing our tra­di­tion­al eco­nom­ic per­spec­tives and chart­ing new di­rec­tions for ser­vices ex­pan­sion. To­geth­er, as one uni­fied, high-per­form­ing ser­vices sec­tor, we pos­sess the col­lec­tive bril­liance, the op­er­a­tional grit, and the pas­sion to re­shape the eco­nom­ic des­tiny of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Our cel­e­brat­ed awardees stand as liv­ing proof that our lo­cal tal­ent is ready to step out from the shad­ow of oil and gas, con­fi­dent­ly step on­to the glob­al stage, and own it com­plete­ly.

As we close off ser­vices week on Sep­tem­ber 12th and as we nav­i­gate this trans­for­ma­tive path, the TTC­SI stands un­wa­ver­ing in our com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing con­tin­ued growth, fierce ad­vo­ca­cy, and ag­gres­sive ca­pac­i­ty build­ing for all our mem­bers.

We main­tain ab­solute con­fi­dence that our strate­gic toolk­its, mar­ket-en­try mis­sions, and up­skilling ini­tia­tives will em­pow­er an even larg­er con­tin­gent of ser­vice providers to cross the win­ners' stage next year. Our col­lec­tive tar­get re­mains clear: to in­spire every lo­cal en­ter­prise and in­de­pen­dent free­lancer to scale their op­er­a­tions, dom­i­nate in­ter­na­tion­al net­works, and dis­play an even more pow­er­ful, un­de­ni­able show of com­mer­cial ad­vance­ment and re­al­ize cor­po­rate goals on our na­tion's pre­mier ser­vices plat­form.

Di­anne Joseph is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI)