PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change (TTSE) has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing with Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers Ad­vi­so­ry Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (PwC Trinidad and To­ba­go) with the aim of strength­en­ing aware­ness of the TTSE’s Small and Medi­um En­ter­prise (SME) Mar­ket.

The MOU is al­so geared to­wards cre­at­ing greater un­der­stand­ing of the Ini­tial Pub­lic Of­fer­ing (IPO) process among SMEs in T&T.

The TTSE in a news re­lease yes­ter­day said, “The part­ner­ship re­flects a shared com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing busi­ness growth, cap­i­tal mar­ket de­vel­op­ment and long-term eco­nom­ic sus­tain­abil­i­ty through in­creased en­gage­ment with the SME sec­tor. Un­der the MoU, the TTSE and PwC Trinidad and To­ba­go will col­lab­o­rate on a se­ries of ini­tia­tives over a two-year pe­ri­od fo­cused on SME mar­ket aware­ness, ed­u­ca­tion and out­reach.

The TTSE ex­plained these ini­tia­tives will in­clude the de­vel­op­ment of ed­u­ca­tion­al re­sources, sem­i­nars, we­bi­na­rs and pub­lic pre­sen­ta­tions de­signed to pro­vide SMEs with greater in­sight in­to cap­i­tal rais­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties through eq­ui­ty fi­nanc­ing via the ex­change.

Eva Mitchell, CEO of the TTSE, said, “SMEs are crit­i­cal to eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, in­no­va­tion and job cre­ation in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Through this part­ner­ship with PwC Trinidad and To­ba­go, the TTSE aims to build greater aware­ness of the op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able to SMEs through eq­ui­ty fi­nanc­ing that can sup­port its busi­ness growth, ex­pan­sion and long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

Lisa Awai, Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor at PwC Trinidad and To­ba­go, added,“We are pleased to part­ner with the TTSE on this im­por­tant ini­tia­tive. Build­ing aware­ness and un­der­stand­ing of the SME Mar­ket and IPO process can sup­port busi­ness­es as they ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth, gov­er­nance en­hance­ment and long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

The TTSE’ said the part­ner­ship from part of its broad­er ef­forts to sup­port fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of the stock mar­ket and the wider lo­cal cap­i­tal mar­ket and in­crease en­gage­ment with SMEs seek­ing al­ter­na­tive fi­nanc­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for ex­pan­sion and growth.