Raphael John-Lall

The re­cent vis­its of US Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping to T&T, fol­lowed by this week's Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC), has put this coun­try on the world map, Nicholas Lok Jack, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) said yes­ter­day.

"Last week I was on Wall Street in the fi­nan­cial sec­tor and when peo­ple heard I was from T&T, they in­stant­ly knew that the Chi­nese Pres­i­dent was here and US Vice Pres­i­dent. The events of the last cou­ple weeks have re­al­ly put us on the map in in­ter­na­tion­al cir­cles," Lok Jack said, at the open­ing of the an­nu­al trade show, at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain.

"As is true for many coun­tries, Trinidad and To­ba­go has its share of is­sues af­fect­ing its abil­i­ty to grow and de­vel­op. T&T is ranked at 84 out of 144 coun­tries in the world in terms of com­pet­i­tive­ness, with the main prob­lem af­fect­ing busi­ness be­ing that of in­ef­fi­cient gov­ern­ment bu­reau­cra­cy."These per­ceived or re­al ob­sta­cles to do­ing busi­ness need to be elim­i­nat­ed to al­low the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor to ful­fil its po­ten­tial and be­come a ma­jor dri­ver of eco­nom­ic growth."

Lok Jack said he is start­ing to see an im­prove­ment in the way busi­ness is con­duct­ed and said it is im­por­tant that the Gov­ern­ment be­come more busi­ness ori­ent­ed in the way it op­er­ates."For in­vestors will­ing to in­vest in Trinidad and To­ba­go, it is worth not­ing that T&T con­tin­ues to re­ceive pos­i­tive in­vest­ment cred­it rat­ings by agen­cies such as Stan­dard and Poor's and Moody's. Our high GDP per capi­ta of over US$20,000, rel­a­tive­ly low in­fla­tion and strong fi­nan­cial sec­tor make our na­tion an at­trac­tive in­vest­ment des­ti­na­tion.

"Ladies and gen­tle­men, if your pur­pose is to en­gage in busi­ness, if you wish to ex­pand your op­er­a­tions, if you wish to grow your busi­ness en­ter­prise, you are in the right place, right here, right now, at the TIC in Trinidad and To­ba­go."Lok Jack said thou­sands of vis­i­tors were ex­pect­ed for this year's TIC, in­clud­ing sev­er­al Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries. He said the event brings re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al buy­ers to the doorsteps of lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers and ser­vice providers, pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to reach new mar­kets and in­crease trade.

He said, how­ev­er, that the im­pact of trade shows like TIC can­not be seen im­me­di­ate­ly."Con­tacts are made to­day that busi­ness will flow from in an­oth­er five years," he said.Trade Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath said T&T is be­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly com­pet­i­tive even com­pared to some US states. De­spite its close prox­im­i­ty to Flori­da, T&T has a com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage, he said.

"T&T has a good telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem, we have cheap en­er­gy which Flori­da cer­tain­ly does not have. We have very good macro eco­nom­ic fun­da­men­tals which Flori­da does not. Be­cause of where we are, we can be tru­ly called the gate­way of the Amer­i­c­as. The pop­u­la­tion of T&T speaks more Eng­lish than Flori­da be­cause of its in­flux of Latin Amer­i­cans," he said.