An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

The Star­lite Group has apol­o­gised to cus­tomers for the re­duced avail­abil­i­ty of choco­lates and con­fec­tionery this Christ­mas, point­ing to on­go­ing im­port re­stric­tions that con­tin­ue to dis­rupt re­tail sup­ply chains across T&T.

In a state­ment post­ed on Face­book over the week­end, the phar­ma­cy and re­tail group said it has been un­able to stock its usu­al sea­son­al range due to sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges fac­ing im­porters. Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, re­stric­tions now af­fect a wide range of es­sen­tial items, in­clud­ing choco­lates and dairy prod­ucts, food items, vi­t­a­mins and oth­er sim­i­lar goods.

Star­lite not­ed that many of these prod­ucts are al­ready ap­proved for sale in the Unit­ed States and oth­er ma­jor mar­kets, but per­sis­tent lim­i­ta­tions on im­ports have con­strained their avail­abil­i­ty lo­cal­ly.

The com­pa­ny ac­knowl­edged the dis­ap­point­ment this may cause cus­tomers dur­ing the peak hol­i­day sea­son and thanked them for their pa­tience and con­tin­ued sup­port.
“Please be as­sured that we are do­ing our best to over­come these chal­lenges, and we hope to serve you bet­ter in 2026,” the state­ment said.

The de­vel­op­ment has drawn com­ment from the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, which has re­peat­ed­ly warned that lim­it­ed ac­cess to for­eign ex­change is in­creas­ing­ly af­fect­ing both busi­ness­es and house­holds.

Re­spond­ing to Star­lite Group’s state­ment yes­ter­day, T&T Cham­ber CEO Vashti Guyadeen told Guardian Me­dia the sit­u­a­tion un­der­scores how the for­eign ex­change chal­lenge has moved be­yond ab­stract eco­nom­ic in­di­ca­tors and is now di­rect­ly im­pact­ing every­day life.

“The Star­lite Group’s state­ment re­flects what many busi­ness­es and house­holds are fac­ing, which is lim­it­ed ac­cess to for­eign ex­change now af­fect­ing every­day goods, from food to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals,” Guyadeen said. “This shows the is­sue has moved be­yond macro­eco­nom­ics; it’s hit­ting sup­ply chains and store shelves.”

She ex­plained that con­strained ac­cess to for­eign ex­change cre­ates de­lays, short­ages and height­ened un­cer­tain­ty for im­porters, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult for busi­ness­es to plan, re­stock and meet con­sumer de­mand. In the re­tail sec­tor, these chal­lenges are in­creas­ing­ly vis­i­ble to cus­tomers, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing pe­ri­ods of height­ened con­sump­tion, such as the Christ­mas sea­son.

Guyadeen re­it­er­at­ed the Cham­ber’s po­si­tion that restor­ing con­sis­tent ac­cess to for­eign ex­change is crit­i­cal to eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and busi­ness con­fi­dence. She said the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion calls for ur­gent and co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion at the na­tion­al lev­el.

“Our po­si­tion is clear: restor­ing con­sis­tent ac­cess to for­eign ex­change is vi­tal to sta­bil­i­ty and busi­ness con­fi­dence,” she said. “We need a co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al re­sponse be­tween the Gov­ern­ment, the Cen­tral Bank and the pri­vate sec­tor.”

She added that di­a­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion are es­sen­tial to iden­ti­fy and im­ple­ment strate­gies to ease the pres­sure on im­porters and the wider econ­o­my. “We need to put our heads to­geth­er and talk through the strate­gies which are ur­gent­ly need­ed,” Guyadeen said, warn­ing that in­ac­tion would on­ly deep­en ex­ist­ing chal­lenges.
“Do­ing noth­ing is not an op­tion,” she stressed.

The Star­lite­Group up­date comes amid grow­ing con­cern from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty that pro­longed for­eign ex­change con­straints could fur­ther erode con­sumer choice, dis­rupt sup­ply chains and weigh on eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty head­ing in­to 2026.