The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), the Ja­maica Cham­ber of Com­merce (JCC) the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce and the Bermudez Group of Com­pa­nies re­cent­ly signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing in Kingston, Ja­maica, for the of­fi­cial es­tab­lish­ment of a Trade Desk to fa­cil­i­tate trade in goods and ser­vices be­tween Ja­maica and Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Trade Fa­cil­i­ta­tion Desk will be housed at the TTMA's of­fice, Barataria. The groups in­volved in the ini­tia­tive will work to­geth­er to fa­cil­i­tate and as­sist trade be­tween the two coun­tries and ad­dress any is­sues that may arise due to reg­u­la­tions, stan­dards and ex­cess bu­reau­cra­cy, cus­toms, un­fair treat­ment of goods and oth­er ar­eas im­pact­ing the ac­cess of prod­ucts to the in­tend­ed mar­kets.

The Trade Desk will as­sist in es­tab­lish­ing trad­ing part­ners by pro­vid­ing rel­e­vant mar­ket in­for­ma­tion, fa­cil­i­tat­ing mar­ket ac­cess, net­work­ing and meet­ings. Speak­ing at the launch, Natasha Mustapha-Scott, CEO of the TTMA, un­der­scored the need for the pri­vate sec­tor to play its role in fos­ter­ing re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment. She added: "It is time for the pri­vate sec­tor to take its place as the cham­pi­ons of trade and lob­by gov­ern­ments to not on­ly talk and put pen to pa­per but to be­gin the im­ple­men­ta­tion of these plans and poli­cies."