The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) yes­ter­day an­nounced that Ramesh Ramdeen has been ap­point­ed as the As­so­ci­a­tion's CEO, ef­fec­tive 2nd Jan­u­ary, 2013. Ramdeen will re­place Natasha Mustapha-Scott, who held the po­si­tion of CEO for more than ten years. The TTMA board of di­rec­tors thanked Mustapha-Scott for her ster­ling con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of the TTMA.

In a state­ment, the TTMA said Ramdeen has more than 20 years ex­pe­ri­ence in trade de­vel­op­ment, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions, com­pe­ti­tion pol­i­cy and eco­nom­ics. TTMA Pres­i­dent, Do­minic Hadeed said: "Ramesh has the re­quired skills and ex­pe­ri­ence for this po­si­tion, and has a proven track record of rep­re­sent­ing the in­ter­ests of TTMA mem­bers in lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al trade ne­go­ti­a­tions, and oth­er trade mat­ters.

"Un­der Ramesh's lead­er­ship at TTMA, we will build on our mis­sion to be the voice of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor and the lead­ing ad­vo­cate for poli­cies that as­sist in its growth and de­vel­op­ment," Mr. Hadeed said.

Ramdeen said: "I am ho­n­oured to be se­lect­ed by the Board for this im­por­tant po­si­tion. I have a deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the TTMA's work in pro­mot­ing the com­pet­i­tive­ness of man­u­fac­tur­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and I am com­mit­ted to work­ing with the As­so­ci­a­tion's stake­hold­ers in re­tain­ing and en­hanc­ing its high val­ue po­si­tion in the cur­rent dy­nam­ic busi­ness cli­mate."

Be­tween 2005 and 2012, Ramdeen served as Trade De­vel­op­ment Spe­cial­ist at the TTMA. Pri­or to that, Ramesh worked at the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try in two ca­pac­i­ties – that of a Fair Trad­ing In­ves­ti­ga­tor for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4 years, where his spe­cial­ty was in the area of Trade Reme­dies and Com­pe­ti­tion Pol­i­cy and Law, and as an Econ­o­mist for a pe­ri­od of 6 years. He was al­so an Econ­o­mist/In­ves­ti­ga­tor with the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade.

Ramdeen holds a first de­gree in Eco­nom­ics, a post-grad­u­ate diplo­ma in In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions as well as a Mas­ters de­gree in the same dis­ci­pline. He al­so pos­sess­es a sec­ond Mas­ters De­gree (with dis­tinc­tion) in the area of In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Pol­i­cy.

In 2012, Ramdeen com­plet­ed a full pro­gram in Ex­port Mar­ket­ing and is ful­ly cer­ti­fied as an Ex­port Mar­ket­ing Train­er. He has trained a num­ber of CEOs of Small and Medi­um sized En­ter­pris­es (SMEs) with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Cari­com re­gion in Ex­port Mar­ket­ing. He is cur­rent­ly un­der­tak­ing his PhD in Trade with the Aus­tralian In­sti­tute of Busi­ness.