RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The on­go­ing mil­i­tary train­ing ex­er­cise be­tween the US Marines and the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) does not com­pro­mise T&T’s sov­er­eign­ty, says pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Ki­ran Singh.

Speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing City Week cel­e­bra­tions in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Singh said he sup­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s stance that the joint train­ing would strength­en na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

He re­ject­ed claims that the col­lab­o­ra­tion placed T&T at risk.

“We re­main on friend­ly terms with Cari­com as well as our south­ern neigh­bours,” Singh said, not­ing that re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions are shaped by evolv­ing cir­cum­stances. “We have to wait and see. We can’t say what the US will do. We are a small na­tion, and we have to wait and see what hap­pens.”

Com­ment­ing on the train­ing, which ends on Fri­day, Singh added, “I think it’s a good idea for the lo­cal mil­i­tary, the lo­cal de­fence force, to get some train­ing from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. The US mil­i­tary is one of the best in the world, and they cer­tain­ly have strate­gies that can en­hance our of­fer­ing to the pub­lic.”

He said the col­lab­o­ra­tion could al­so im­prove how the armed forces in­ter­act with cit­i­zens.

Singh al­so an­nounced ex­pand­ing busi­ness prospects in Guyana, say­ing the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber is pur­su­ing joint ini­tia­tives with the George­town Cham­ber of Com­merce to boost trade op­por­tu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly for busi­ness­es in south Trinidad.

He not­ed that sev­er­al lo­cal com­pa­nies are al­ready ac­tive in Guyana’s en­er­gy and in­fra­struc­ture sec­tors, and said more op­por­tu­ni­ties are open­ing in labour sup­ply and for­eign-ex­change gen­er­a­tion.

“We are poised, from the hu­man re­source per­spec­tive, to add val­ue to what comes out of Guyana. And we can ben­e­fit from the for­eign ex­change as­pect be­cause we ex­port our hu­man re­sources to George­town, which they are des­per­ate­ly in need of,” Singh said.

Trade mis­sions to Guyana are planned for 2026, he added.

Singh al­so out­lined plans to sup­port small en­ter­pris­es through the South­ern In­vest­ment and En­tre­pre­neurs’ Co­op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union So­ci­ety. Once launched, the cred­it union will fa­cil­i­tate pop-up mar­kets and train­ing work­shops.

“Small busi­ness­es don’t al­ways have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rent space to show­case their prod­ucts or go on­line,” he said. “Through pop-up mar­kets, they can ac­cess eco­nom­i­cal spaces at venues with high cus­tomer traf­fic.”

The Cham­ber al­so plans to part­ner with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and mu­nic­i­pal po­lice to en­hance sur­veil­lance in down­town San Fer­nan­do. Busi­ness own­ers will fund se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras, while po­lice will in­stall and mon­i­tor them. Two mon­i­tors have al­ready been do­nat­ed to the po­lice con­trol room.

Singh said the aim is to en­sure re­al-time re­sponse ca­pa­bil­i­ty. He added that po­lice have com­mit­ted to in­creased foot and ve­hi­cle pa­trols dur­ing the Christ­mas and Car­ni­val sea­sons, while busi­ness­es in­tend to open dai­ly—in­clud­ing ex­tend­ed hours—to sup­port com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty in the city.