The Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSI­DA) has wel­comed the ap­point­ment of Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj as Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism.

Ma­haraj was sworn in yes­ter­day at the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, St Ann’s.

In a state­ment fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, the as­so­ci­a­tion al­so wel­comed the ap­point­ment of Dr Neil Go­sine as Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the min­istry.

In the state­ment, TTSI­DA pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son said he and his mem­bers have had a long­stand­ing work­ing re­la­tion­ship with the Min­istry of Trade, which he de­scribed as the line min­istry for the scrap iron in­dus­try.

“Just as we worked tire­less­ly with past min­is­ters un­der dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ments, we pledge our com­mit­ment and sup­port to work­ing with Mr Ma­haraj and his team in the best in­ter­est of our in­dus­try and the coun­try,” the as­so­ci­a­tion stat­ed.

In­di­cat­ed that there are on­go­ing is­sues af­fect­ing the scrap iron in­dus­try, the as­so­ci­a­tion said it hopes to meet with the min­is­ter and his team to ad­dress these mat­ters in the short­est pos­si­ble time.

“We look for­ward to fruit­ful dis­cus­sions and pos­i­tive re­sults in the com­ing weeks,” the re­lease con­clud­ed.