GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Ex­port growth, in­ter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness and the pow­er of lo­cal en­ter­prise to shape T&T's fu­ture con­verged at the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce's Cham­pi­ons of Busi­ness Awards 2026 on Wednes­day evening, where busi­nesslead­ers, ex­porters and pol­i­cy­mak­ers cel­e­brat­ed com­pa­nies that con­tin­ue to prove that home­grown suc­cess can trans­late in­to glob­al im­pact.

From man­u­fac­tur­ing gi­ants ex­port­ing across con­ti­nents to ser­vice providers com­pet­ing in knowl­edge-dri­ven in­dus­tries, the mes­sage through­out the cer­e­mo­ny which took place at the Hy­att Re­gency was clear: T&T's pri­vate sec­tor re­mains one of the coun­try's great­est as­sets, and its con­tin­ued suc­cess would be crit­i­cal to cre­at­ing jobs, gen­er­at­ing for­eign ex­change and dri­ving sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth.

Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj said the achieve­ments be­ing cel­e­brat­ed were not sim­ply cor­po­rate mile­stones but ex­am­ples of the in­no­va­tion, re­silience and am­bi­tion need­ed to strength­en the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

"Pol­i­cy maps our po­ten­tial but this room pow­ers our eco­nom­ic sov­er­eign­ty. You are the builders, the in­no­va­tors and the re­lent­less risk-tak­ers cham­pi­oning Trinida­di­an ex­cel­lence world­wide," Ma­haraj told the au­di­ence.

He stressed that sup­port­ing busi­ness de­vel­op­ment re­mains cen­tral to the Gov­ern­ment's eco­nom­ic agen­da.

"At the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, pri­vate sec­tor am­bi­tion isn't sup­port­ed ar­bi­trar­i­ly. It is the en­gine we ac­tive­ly build around, in­vest in and sup­port un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly," he said.

Ma­haraj de­liv­ered the pre­sen­ta­tion for the award recog­nis­ing the The Co­conut Grow­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, op­er­at­ing as CGA Ltd, as the In­ter­na­tion­al­ly Known T&T Owned Com­pa­ny of the Year.

The min­is­ter de­scribed the com­pa­ny as "a pil­lar of our eco­nom­ic his­to­ry and a ti­tan of mod­ern man­u­fac­tur­ing."

The min­is­ter traced the com­pa­ny's evo­lu­tion from a col­lec­tive of lo­cal co­conut farm­ers es­tab­lished 89 years ago in­to one of T&T's lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers.

To­day, the Laven­tille-based com­pa­ny sup­ports near­ly 300 jobs and ex­ports prod­ucts to 13 in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets, rang­ing from Cari­com ter­ri­to­ries to con­sumers in the Unit­ed States.

High­light­ing brands such as Nar­iel and Marigold, along with the com­pa­ny's Ce­dros Bay ve­g­an per­son­al care line, Ma­haraj said strate­gic in­vest­ments, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and a com­mit­ment to in­ter­na­tion­al qual­i­ty stan­dards en­abled the busi­ness to re­main com­pet­i­tive in an in­creas­ing­ly de­mand­ing glob­al mar­ket­place.

"They prove every sin­gle day that Trinidad and To­ba­go is not just a con­sumer of world-class prod­ucts. We are an undis­put­ed cre­ator of them," he added.

The con­ver­sa­tion around ex­ports and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pan­sion ex­tend­ed be­yond man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Caribbean Ex­port De­vel­op­ment Agency ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Dr Damie Sinanan point­ed to the grow­ing im­por­tance of ser­vices ex­ports, de­scrib­ing the sec­tor as one of the most dy­nam­ic com­po­nents of glob­al trade.

Cit­ing World Trade Or­gan­i­sa­tion da­ta show­ing glob­al ser­vices ex­ports reached US$9.6 tril­lion in 2025, Sinanan said Caribbean busi­ness­es are in­creas­ing­ly well-po­si­tioned to com­pete in­ter­na­tion­al­ly through pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, dig­i­tal ser­vices and the cre­ative in­dus­tries.

"Across pro­fes­sion­al and dig­i­tal ser­vices, the cre­ative in­dus­tries and oth­er knowl­edge-based ac­tiv­i­ties, the op­por­tu­ni­ty is sub­stan­tial. Our peo­ple have the skills and ideas to serve clients around the world," he said.

Sinanan not­ed that over the last three decades Caribbean Ex­port has sup­port­ed re­gion­al busi­ness­es through ex­port-readi­ness train­ing, ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing pro­grammes, mar­ket de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives and its Ser­vices Go Glob­al pro­gramme, help­ing firms ac­cess op­por­tu­ni­ties be­yond their do­mes­tic mar­kets.

Those am­bi­tions were echoed by T&T Cham­ber pres­i­dent Karen Yip Chuck, who said the awards recog­nised not on­ly com­mer­cial suc­cess but the per­se­ver­ance, vi­sion and lead­er­ship re­quired to build en­dur­ing en­ter­pris­es.

"We ho­n­our the vi­sion, courage and per­se­ver­ance be­hind busi­ness achieve­ment and the con­tri­bu­tion that en­ter­prise makes to Trinidad and To­ba­go," she said.

Yip Chuck said this year's fi­nal­ists re­flect­ed the breadth of busi­ness ex­cel­lence across en­tre­pre­neur­ship, in­no­va­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, SME growth and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pan­sion, while the in­tro­duc­tion of the Caribbean Ser­vices Ex­porter of the Year Award un­der­scored the grow­ing im­por­tance of knowl­edge-based in­dus­tries to re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment.

She al­so high­light­ed ini­tia­tives such as the cham­ber's ex­port ac­tion pro­gramme and ef­forts to es­tab­lish a Caribbean Ex­port Acad­e­my, aimed at help­ing more busi­ness­es ac­cess in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets and scale their op­er­a­tions.

"I in­vite every­one here to help ex­tend that suc­cess. Men­tor an en­tre­pre­neur. Cre­ate an op­por­tu­ni­ty for a small­er sup­pli­er. Share your ex­pe­ri­ence. Help a lo­cal busi­ness en­ter a new mar­ket," she urged.

The evening al­so cel­e­brat­ed ex­cel­lence across a broad cross-sec­tion of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

In ad­di­tion to CGA Ltd, award re­cip­i­ents in­clud­ed Con­trol Tech­nolo­gies Ltd for Break­through Ex­porter of the Year, Just Kidz Emer­gency Med­ical for En­tre­pre­neur­ship, Re­new­able Pow­er Caribbean Ltd for the Green Agen­da Award, Pro­totabTT — So­lar PoniX for In­no­va­tion, Cham­bers Me­dia So­lu­tions and Gis­cad Lim­it­ed in the SME cat­e­gories, while Me­dia In­Site Ltd cap­tured the Caribbean Ser­vices Award.

Busi­ness Hall of Fame ho­n­ours were be­stowed on Madame Ram­doolar­ie Ma­haraj posthu­mous­ly and Ram­nar­ine Ram­per­sad, recog­nis­ing their last­ing con­tri­bu­tions to busi­ness de­vel­op­ment in T&T.