Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try, Paula Gopee-Scoon has em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion for T&T and the wider re­gion, stat­ing that eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion is es­sen­tial for the fu­ture of Caribbean coun­tries, as re­liance on on­ly a few key sec­tors makes us more vul­ner­a­ble to ex­ter­nal shocks.

“Eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion is key to build­ing re­silience and un­lock­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth, in­no­va­tion and job cre­ation through the re­sult­ing new prod­ucts, process­es and new mar­kets,” Gopee-Scoon said as she spoke dur­ing dis­cus­sions on the Caribbean’s eco­nom­ic re­silience, at the eighth meet­ing of the Unit­ed Na­tion Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean’s (ECLAC’s) Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Round­table, which took place on Tues­day.

Out­lin­ing five main strate­gies em­ployed by the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, the min­is­ter out­lined the ini­tia­tives that are sup­port­ing di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in T&T and help­ing to po­si­tion the coun­try for long-term suc­cess.

First­ly, Gopee-Scoon not­ed the min­istry con­tin­ues to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­pan­sion of sec­tors, in­clud­ing de­vel­op­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing, ser­vices, and agro-pro­cess­ing sec­tors through ini­tia­tives such as the Ex­port Boost­er Ini­tia­tive.

Re­gard­ing pur­su­ing ad­di­tion­al sec­tors for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, she said to dri­ve the eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion agen­da fur­ther, the Gov­ern­ment has in­creased strate­gic fo­cus on the mar­itime sec­tor and nearshoring, adding that these ar­eas present op­por­tu­ni­ties for em­ploy­ment, skills de­vel­op­ment and boost­ing T&T’s ser­vices ex­port rev­enues.

Per­tain­ing to cre­at­ing a fa­cil­i­ta­tive en­vi­ron­ment for trade and in­vest­ment, she said the cre­ation of a sup­port­ive trade and in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment is cru­cial to di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and en­sur­ing that new in­dus­tries are nur­tured and un­tapped mar­kets are ex­plored. She not­ed that cur­rent ini­tia­tives in T&T in­clude the de­vel­op­ment of a Na­tion­al Trade Strat­e­gy 2024 to 2029, mod­ern eco­nom­ic spaces (such as the Phoenix Park In­dus­tri­al Es­tate), and a mod­ernised Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones Regime.

In ad­di­tion, the min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed the min­istry con­tin­ues to pur­sue op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth through mar­ket ac­cess by con­duct­ing strate­gic trade mis­sions, de­vel­op­ing new trade agree­ments, es­tab­lish­ing the T&T Trade and In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency and ap­point­ing com­mer­cial of­fi­cers and at­tach­es.

On the is­sue of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, this al­so re­mains a pri­or­i­ty as Gopee-Scoon out­lined the min­istry’s re­cent en­hance­ment of the TTBi­zLink plat­form which al­lows for the pro­vi­sion of a suite of 48 gov­ern­ment e-ser­vices.

“The Gov­ern­ment has con­tin­ued the im­ple­men­ta­tion of re­forms to make process­es more ef­fi­cient for deal­ing with con­struc­tion per­mits (brand­ed De­vel­opTT), reg­is­ter­ing prop­er­ty (via the prop­er­ty busi­ness reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem), start­ing a busi­ness (via the com­pa­nies reg­istry on­line sys­tem), and trad­ing across board­ers through, for in­stance, the trade and busi­ness in­for­ma­tion por­tal, and the ex­e­cu­tion of con­sult­ing ser­vices for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a port com­mu­ni­ty sys­tem,” Gopee-Scoon ex­plained.

She al­so not­ed ac­tions to­ward re­solv­ing in­sol­ven­cy em­ployed un­der the Min­istry of Fi­nance, ef­forts to mod­ernise the ex­ist­ing Elec­tron­ic Trans­ac­tions Act, steps to man­age tax­es through the e-Tax sys­tem and the co­or­di­na­tion of oth­er dig­i­tal pay­ment ser­vices.

Re­gard­ing in­vest­ing in hu­man cap­i­tal, the min­is­ter added the min­istry con­tin­ues to sup­port ap­pren­tice­ship pro­grammes to build ca­pac­i­ty, de­vel­op the work­force and ex­pand the man­u­fac­tur­ing, yacht­ing, and wood and wood prod­ucts sec­tors.