Ger­ald Aboud

There is an ur­gent is­sue af­fect­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of es­sen­tial food and health sup­ple­ments in T&T, dri­ven by ex­ces­sive bu­reau­cra­cy and out­dat­ed im­port reg­u­la­tions. These re­stric­tions are not on­ly cost­ly but al­so cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­ers for re­tail im­porters and con­sumers alike.

In a glob­alised world, con­sumers ex­pect ac­cess to the high­est-qual­i­ty health and nu­tri­tion prod­ucts-many of which are read­i­ly avail­able in first-world mar­kets. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, our cur­rent reg­u­la­to­ry en­vi­ron­ment im­pos­es re­dun­dant and ex­ces­sive con­trols that pre­vent many of the most ad­vanced and ef­fec­tive brands from reach­ing our shores.

We are wit­ness­ing a sit­u­a­tion where cut­ting-edge health prod­ucts, par­tic­u­lar­ly sup­ple­ments with proven ben­e­fits, are ex­clud­ed from the lo­cal mar­ket due to over­ly bur­den­some im­port re­quire­ments. For ex­am­ple, a preg­nant woman seek­ing pre­na­tal sup­ple­ments with op­ti­mal choline con­tent may be forced to set­tle for in­fe­ri­or al­ter­na­tives. In some cas­es, even a sim­ple item like a block of cheese re­quires mul­ti­ple cer­tifi­cates-de­spite the fact that these stan­dards have al­ready been sat­is­fied by ex­port­ing coun­tries with su­pe­ri­or reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tems.

As a re­sult, rep­utable in­ter­na­tion­al brands are of­ten un­will­ing to nav­i­gate the com­plex and cost­ly process­es re­quired to en­ter our mar­ket. This lim­its con­sumer choice and neg­a­tive­ly im­pacts pub­lic health, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the food and well­ness sec­tors.

Re­tail im­porters, who could oth­er­wise meet the grow­ing de­mand for di­verse, high-qual­i­ty prod­ucts, face dis­pro­por­tion­ate chal­lenges-es­pe­cial­ly in a small is­land econ­o­my where dis­tri­b­u­tion should be flex­i­ble and in­clu­sive. Many con­sumers are now re­sort­ing to Ama­zon and oth­er on­line plat­forms to ac­cess prod­ucts that should be avail­able lo­cal­ly.

We re­spect­ful­ly rec­om­mend a pol­i­cy re­view that in­cludes:

• Re­duced re­stric­tions on ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al brands with proven safe­ty records;

• Stream­lined reg­is­tra­tion process­es that low­er both cost and time bur­dens;

• Recog­ni­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tions from rep­utable coun­tries and or­gan­i­sa­tions;

• Fair ac­cess for small­er im­porters and in­de­pen­dent re­tail­ers, who are cur­rent­ly dis­ad­van­taged by a sys­tem that favours a few dom­i­nant play­ers.

The cur­rent struc­ture fos­ters a pro­tec­tion­ist en­vi­ron­ment that lim­its com­pet­i­tive­ness and re­stricts con­sumer choice. Un­less these bar­ri­ers are ad­dressed, we will con­tin­ue to fall be­hind in pro­vid­ing our pop­u­la­tion with ac­cess to world-class food and health so­lu­tions.

We ap­pre­ci­ate your at­ten­tion to this mat­ter and hope for a bal­anced ap­proach that pri­ori­tis­es both pub­lic health and fair mar­ket ac­cess.