The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has en­dorsed the open­ing of the Brechin Cas­tle Agro-Pro­cess­ing Fa­cil­i­ty in Cou­va, stat­ing that the project can sup­port SME growth, food se­cu­ri­ty and ex­port de­vel­op­ment.

In a state­ment is­sued on Mon­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion said the fa­cil­i­ty rep­re­sents an in­vest­ment in man­u­fac­tur­ing, agro-pro­cess­ing and eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

The TTMA said the plant can cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for farm­ers and agro-proces­sors to con­vert raw pro­duce in­to prod­ucts for ex­port mar­kets. The as­so­ci­a­tion added that the ini­tia­tive can re­duce post-har­vest loss­es and in­crease the com­mer­cial val­ue of lo­cal agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts.

TTMA Pres­i­dent Emil Ramkissoon said fa­cil­i­ties such as Brechin Cas­tle are nec­es­sary for build­ing the coun­try’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

Ramkissoon said agro-pro­cess­ing re­mains an area for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion as Trinidad and To­ba­go seeks to in­crease lo­cal pro­duc­tion, sup­port SMEs and cre­ate ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties with­in CARI­COM and oth­er mar­kets.

He said the project can cre­ate jobs, sup­port en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­crease eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so said the fa­cil­i­ty aligns with calls for in­vest­ment in down­stream man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­cess­ing in­dus­tries to sup­port food se­cu­ri­ty goals and re­duce de­pen­dence on im­ports.

The TTMA fur­ther com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment for pur­su­ing part­ner­ships aimed at ex­pand­ing the coun­try’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor and cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­no­va­tion and ex­ports.

The as­so­ci­a­tion ref­er­enced its re­cent trade mis­sion to In­dia, which in­volved meet­ings with man­u­fac­tur­ers, in­vestors and busi­ness lead­ers in sev­er­al sec­tors.

The TTMA said the mis­sion high­light­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­ter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion, tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer and pri­vate part­ner­ships.

The TTMA al­so point­ed to the re­cent open­ing of a pros­thet­ics cen­tre, stat­ing that spe­cialised in­dus­tries can serve CARI­COM mar­kets while gen­er­at­ing for­eign ex­change through the ex­port of goods and ser­vices.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said in­vest­ments in man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­cess­ing in­dus­tries are nec­es­sary to po­si­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go as a re­gion­al pro­duc­tion and in­no­va­tion hub.

The TTMA said it re­mains com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing ini­tia­tives aimed at in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment, man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­pan­sion, food se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties.