Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Stephen Cadiz vis­it­ed two com­pa­nies, Fur­ni­ture Spe­cial­ists Lim­it­ed and Ray Dar Au­to Lim­it­ed at O'Meara In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, Ari­ma, re­cent­ly.Ac­com­pa­nied by a team of Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Min­is­ter Cadiz toured the fa­cil­i­ties of both com­pa­nies, owned by Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor David Nath.

In at­ten­dance were Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Carl Fran­cis, Di­rec­tor of In­vest­ment Wayne Pun­nette, Al­liances Man­ag­er Su­san Singh-Seer­at­tan, Se­nior Trade Spe­cial­ist Trudy Lewis, and In­dus­try Spe­cial­ist Ni­ki Braith­waite. Min­is­ter Cadiz and the group of MTI rep­re­sen­ta­tives met with Nath to dis­cuss the op­por­tu­ni­ties and ben­e­fits, as well as the con­cerns and chal­lenges, of both the lo­cal fur­ni­ture and mo­tor­car in­dus­tries.

Fur­ni­ture Spe­cial­ists Lim­it­ed is a mem­ber of the lo­cal fur­ni­ture in­dus­try, which com­prise ap­prox­i­mate­ly 8 – 10 man­u­fac­tur­ers.The pro­por­tion of lo­cal ma­te­r­i­al in­volved in its man­u­fac­ture of wood­en prod­ucts and up­hol­stered ma­te­r­i­al is 85 per cent and 75 per cent re­spec­tive­ly.Ray Dar Au­to Lim­it­ed pro­vides au­to­mo­bile main­te­nance, re­pair and up­hol­stery ser­vices, specif­i­cal­ly for Land Rover ve­hi­cles.

Ray Dar faces the many chal­lenges of the lo­cal car in­dus­try, in­clud­ing the need for stricter en­force­ment of for­eign-used SUV reg­u­la­tions, as well as the lack of skilled work­ers that spe­cialise in the ef­fi­cient main­te­nance and re­pair of Land Rover ve­hi­cles.The site vis­it forms part of MTI's man­date to meet with busi­ness own­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go to hear their con­cerns and chal­lenges.