New­ly-elect­ed pres­i­dent of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) Emil Ramkissoon said the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s leg­isla­tive com­mit­tee con­tin­ues to mon­i­tors leg­is­la­tion which can po­ten­tial­ly af­fect its mem­ber­ship such as Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Prop­er­ty Bill, a piece of leg­is­la­tion the TTMA has pub­licly cham­pi­oned as a cor­ner­stone for eco­nom­ic trans­paren­cy.

In a wide-rang­ing in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, the new pres­i­dent said, “The as­so­ci­a­tion has stressed that this leg­is­la­tion must in­cor­po­rate lo­cal con­tent con­sid­er­a­tions, en­sur­ing that lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers are not dis­ad­van­taged by gov­ern­ment pro­cure­ment prac­tices and that trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and lo­cal in­dus­try par­tic­i­pa­tion are strength­ened. Ef­fec­tive le­gal sharp­en­ing here—par­tic­u­lar­ly clear lo­cal pref­er­ence pro­vi­sions and trans­par­ent en­force­ment mech­a­nisms—would help man­u­fac­tur­ers com­pete fair­ly for gov­ern­ment con­tracts and pro­mote lo­cal sup­ply chain de­vel­op­ment.”

How­ev­er, pro­cure­ment is on­ly one side of the reg­u­la­to­ry coin; the TTMA is al­so push­ing for move­ment on long-stalled en­vi­ron­men­tal man­dates that di­rect­ly im­pact the fac­to­ry floor.

From a le­gal stand­point, the sharp­en­ing need­ed in­volves bal­anc­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship with eco­nom­ic vi­a­bil­i­ty as Ramkissoon’s ap­proach em­pha­sis­es that for the bill to be work­able, it must clear­ly de­fine the re­cy­cling oblig­a­tions and com­pli­ance costs for man­u­fac­tur­ers.

“Re­fine­ments that clar­i­fy roles, re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and eco­nom­ic im­pacts on man­u­fac­tur­ers—es­pe­cial­ly re­gard­ing re­cy­cling oblig­a­tions and com­pli­ance costs—would make this law more ef­fec­tive and eq­ui­table for lo­cal pro­duc­ers,” he added.

Be­yond these spe­cif­ic bills, the le­gal fo­cus ex­tends to the porous na­ture of bor­der con­trol and the scourge of il­lic­it trade.

Strength­en­ing the leg­isla­tive tools avail­able to Cus­toms and Ex­cise, as well as the T&T Bu­reau of Stan­dards, is crit­i­cal for safe­guard­ing the mar­ket share of le­git­i­mate man­u­fac­tur­ers.

By re­fin­ing the laws sur­round­ing an­ti-coun­ter­feit­ing and stan­dard en­force­ment, the TTMA could bet­ter pro­tect lo­cal brands from un­fair com­pe­ti­tion.

Calls for new forex al­lo­ca­tion

The TTMA’s leg­isla­tive ad­vo­ca­cy is un­fold­ing against a back­drop of in­tense macro­eco­nom­ic pres­sure, ne­ces­si­tat­ing a strate­gic shift in how the as­so­ci­a­tion ad­vo­cates for its mem­bers.

Against this chal­leng­ing back­drop, the TTMA ap­point­ed the 30-year-old Ramkissoon as its pres­i­dent dur­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s 70th an­nu­al meet­ing and lead­er­ship dis­cus­sion on Wednes­day.

Ramkissoon takes the helm at a crit­i­cal junc­ture, with the sec­tor dou­bling down on its de­mands for stream­lined trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion and reg­u­la­to­ry sta­bil­i­ty.

He un­der­scored that cre­at­ing a more ef­fi­cient busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment is not just a pref­er­ence, but a cen­tral pri­or­i­ty for en­sur­ing the sec­tor re­mains com­pet­i­tive on the re­gion­al and glob­al stage.

Ramkissoon, an at­tor­ney and an ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of New Wave Mar­ket­ing, which spe­cialis­es in PVC pipes and fit­tings, un­der­scored that while the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor re­mains a bedrock of the econ­o­my, the cur­rent dis­cre­tionary dis­tri­b­u­tion of for­eign ex­change is a pri­ma­ry bot­tle­neck.

De­spite the pres­sure, the TTMA is not ad­vo­cat­ing for a rigid, for­mu­la­ic “tiered” quo­ta, but rather a struc­tured, trans­par­ent pri­ori­ti­sa­tion mod­el.

“TTMA has long sup­port­ed pri­or­i­ty ac­cess for man­u­fac­tur­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those con­tribut­ing to ex­port growth. In ear­li­er ad­vo­ca­cy, the as­so­ci­a­tion wel­comed moves to give man­u­fac­tur­ers ‘high­er pri­or­i­ty’ in forex al­lo­ca­tion and stressed the need for a sys­tem that en­sures fair and eq­ui­table ac­cess tied to pro­duc­tion and ex­port needs.

“Sec­ond, TTMA has ac­tive­ly sup­port­ed and worked through ded­i­cat­ed forex win­dows, par­tic­u­lar­ly via the Ex­im­bank fa­cil­i­ty, which is al­ready im­plic­it­ly tiered to­ward pro­duc­tive and ex­port-ori­ent­ed use. This fa­cil­i­ty is specif­i­cal­ly de­signed to fund raw ma­te­ri­als, ma­chin­ery and ex­port-re­lat­ed ex­pens­es, re­in­forc­ing the prin­ci­ple that forex should be chan­nelled to­ward firms gen­er­at­ing eco­nom­ic re­turns and ex­port earn­ings,” Ramkissoon ex­plained.

More re­cent­ly, he added, the TTMA has gone fur­ther by ad­vo­cat­ing for ex­pand­ed and more in­clu­sive al­lo­ca­tion struc­tures, in­clud­ing:

• Cre­at­ing ded­i­cat­ed nich­es for SMEs, es­pe­cial­ly those cur­rent­ly ex­clud­ed from forex fa­cil­i­ties, but with growth and ex­port po­ten­tial

• In­creas­ing over­all forex avail­abil­i­ty to al­low firms to meet ex­port con­tracts and scale pro­duc­tion

In the broad­er pol­i­cy dis­cus­sion—where Gov­ern­ment has raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty of mov­ing away from the cur­rent “ho­n­our sys­tem” to­ward a more struc­tured mod­el—Ramkissoon not­ed that the TTMA has been en­gaged in con­sul­ta­tions around cat­e­gorised al­lo­ca­tion frame­works that could pri­ori­tise trade, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and oth­er pro­duc­tive us­es such as up­grad­ing of ma­chin­ery and ex­pan­sion of plant.

“While TTMA has not pub­lished a spe­cif­ic for­mu­la­ic ‘tiered sys­tem,’ we sup­port a more struc­tured, trans­par­ent al­lo­ca­tion mod­el that pri­ori­tis­es man­u­fac­tur­ers, ex­porters, and high-im­pact SMEs, rather than the cur­rent large­ly dis­cre­tionary dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem,” Ramkissoon fur­ther ex­plained.

Heal­ing rift

This eco­nom­ic strain is com­pound­ed by a pos­si­ble grow­ing risk of frag­men­ta­tion with­in the pri­vate sec­tor, high­light­ed by the re­cent high-pro­file ex­its of “heavy­weight” mem­bers such as the ANSA McAL Group and TCL from the as­so­ci­a­tion.

Busi­ness cham­bers warned that these de­par­tures could sig­nal a frac­ture in rep­re­sen­ta­tion, sug­gest­ing that the largest in­dus­tri­al play­ers feel their voic­es are not be­ing suf­fi­cient­ly heard in high-lev­el gov­ern­ment ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Ramkissoon, how­ev­er, em­pha­sised “the TTMA re­mains in con­stant and ac­tive con­tact with all of our mem­bers, re­gard­less of size or sec­tor.”

He main­tained the as­so­ci­a­tion’s ap­proach is con­sul­ta­tive and re­spon­sive, not­ing, “We con­tin­u­ous­ly en­gage with our mem­ber­ship to iden­ti­fy their con­cerns, and we tai­lor our strate­gies ac­cord­ing­ly de­pend­ing on the spe­cif­ic is­sue.”

Re­gard­ing the ANSA McAL Group specif­i­cal­ly, Ramkissoon re­mained “op­ti­mistic and hope­ful that we will all be sit­ting around the same ta­ble in the not too dis­tant fu­ture, work­ing, syn­er­gis­ing and strate­gis­ing to­ward the com­mon goal of chart­ing a for­ward tra­jec­to­ry for non-en­er­gy trade.”

He as­sert­ed that un­der his pres­i­den­cy, the TTMA would “con­tin­ue to pri­ori­tise the needs of its mem­bers while re­main­ing open to con­sul­ta­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion with all pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers,” lever­ag­ing its 70-year lega­cy as the “num­ber one voice for non-en­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ing.”

​En­er­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing syn­er­gy

The new TTMA pres­i­dent was al­so asked about the re­cent in­creas­es in lo­cal nat­ur­al gas prices and whether the or­gan­i­sa­tion is ad­vo­cat­ing for a sta­ble in­dus­tri­al pow­er rate to keep lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pet­i­tive against re­gion­al peers.

As fluc­tu­a­tions in glob­al nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion con­tin­ue to rip­ple through the lo­cal econ­o­my, the as­so­ci­a­tion has po­si­tioned it­self as a crit­i­cal buffer be­tween volatile util­i­ty costs and the sur­vival of the do­mes­tic man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

For the TTMA, the goal is clear: en­sure that the “en­er­gy ad­van­tage” tra­di­tion­al­ly en­joyed by T&T does not evap­o­rate in the face of ris­ing op­er­a­tional over­heads.

“In its en­gage­ment with the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NGC), TTMA flagged con­cerns about pro­posed sharp in­creas­es in nat­ur­al gas prices for Light In­dus­tri­al Con­sumers. The As­so­ci­a­tion rec­om­mend­ed that, rather than im­ple­ment­ing a sud­den jump, price in­creas­es be­gin at a low­er rate and are phased in grad­u­al­ly over sev­er­al years. TTMA’s po­si­tion is that a pre­dictable, staged ap­proach al­lows man­u­fac­tur­ers to ad­just their op­er­a­tions and bud­gets, re­duc­ing the risk of in­fla­tion­ary cost shocks that can erode com­pet­i­tive­ness,” Ramkissoon said.

Sim­i­lar­ly, he stat­ed the TTMA pre­vi­ous­ly urged reg­u­la­tors such as the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) to phase in in­dus­tri­al elec­tric­i­ty rate in­creas­es rather than ap­ply large sin­gle year hikes.

In 2023, then TTMA lead­er­ship pro­posed to the RIC that rate in­creas­es be spread over a five year pe­ri­od, ar­gu­ing that this would mit­i­gate in­fla­tion­ary pres­sure and give man­u­fac­tur­ers time to ad­just.

Fix Cus­toms quick­ly

Ramkissoon re­mains a stead­fast ad­vo­cate for the am­bi­tious tar­get of dou­bling non-en­er­gy ex­ports to TT$10.6 bil­lion by 2030.

While the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor re­mains a re­silient en­gine of growth, 2026 rep­re­sents a crit­i­cal mid­point where reg­u­la­to­ry hur­dles must be cleared to main­tain the nec­es­sary mo­men­tum.

The first and per­haps most press­ing ob­sta­cle is the mod­erni­sa­tion of Cus­toms and trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion.

Ramkissoon high­light­ed that the cost of wait­ing at the lo­cal ports acts as a hid­den tax on lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers.

For the 2030 goal to re­main vi­able, 2026 must see the full im­ple­men­ta­tion of a seam­less, digi­tised Cus­toms in­ter­face that elim­i­nates man­u­al bot­tle­necks, en­sur­ing that raw ma­te­ri­als en­ter and fin­ished goods ex­it with the speed re­quired by glob­al sup­ply chains.

The sec­ond hur­dle in­volves the over­ar­ch­ing ease of do­ing busi­ness, specif­i­cal­ly the stream­lin­ing of the bu­reau­crat­ic “red tape” that sti­fles ex­pan­sion.

Ramkissoon al­so cau­tioned that the pre­vail­ing crime sit­u­a­tion ex­erts an over­ar­ch­ing and sti­fling im­pact on every facet of na­tion­al life.

“If the crime sit­u­a­tion in TT is fixed, we would have a re­dound­ing im­pact on eco­nom­ic and growth ac­tiv­i­ty in the coun­try,” he added.