The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has come out in sup­port of re­cent moves by the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try to en­sure fair trade prac­tices in the ce­ment in­dus­try.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued to­day by the or­gan­i­sa­tion, ce­ment is one of this coun­try’s ma­jor ex­ports, and it is im­per­a­tive that mea­sures are em­ployed to en­sure it re­mains com­pet­i­tive, and that lo­cal in­vestors and man­u­fac­tur­ers have the right en­vi­ron­ment in which to thrive.

“These mea­sures bal­ance the mar­ket’s de­mand while sup­port­ing lo­cal in­vest­ment in man­u­fac­tur­ing and avoids the neg­a­tive im­pact which un­reg­u­lat­ed im­ports have on un­der­min­ing the com­pet­i­tive­ness of the do­mes­tic man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, and im­pact on the na­tion­al econ­o­my through the sub-op­ti­mal uti­liza­tion of for­eign ex­change,” the TTMA state­ment notes.

The busi­ness lob­by points to its Man­u­fac­tur­ing Ex­port Strat­e­gy, which has the goal of grow­ing the ex­port sec­tor to TT$7 Bil­lion by 2025, and places spe­cif­ic em­pha­sis on the coun­try’s top five ex­ports—food, pa­per, bev­er­age, min­er­als (Ce­ment) and spir­its.

“Phase One of the TTMA’s Man­u­fac­tur­ing strat­e­gy is to sta­bilise the do­mes­tic mar­ket and pri­or­i­tize lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers. Our 2025 vi­sion to in­crease ex­ports will strength­en do­mes­tic ca­pac­i­ty, as­sure sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and cre­ate the right en­vi­ron­ment to grow ex­ports and grow rev­enues,” the re­lease states.  “In this re­gard, the TTMA sup­ports the re­cent trade mea­sures an­nounced by the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try in re­spect of the ce­ment in­dus­try.”

The TTMA ob­serves that the Man­u­fac­tur­ing In­dus­try con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the em­ploy­ment and eco­nom­ic land­scape of Trinidad and To­ba­go, em­ploy­ing 10% of the over­all work­force— some 52,300 work­ers—and con­tribut­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 19% of GDP.  As such, it says, it is im­per­a­tive the val­ue of these key ex­port in­dus­tries is recog­nised, par­tic­u­lar­ly how they sup­port the do­mes­tic mar­ket by lo­cal­ly man­u­fac­tur­ing their prod­ucts in T&T.

The TTMA al­so un­der­scores the im­por­tance of reg­u­la­tions, test­ing, tax com­pli­ance and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grams, to im­prov­ing T&T’s glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness.

“These re­quire­ments are not re­stric­tions. They are a base­line for guar­an­tee­ing qual­i­ty prod­ucts, pro­duc­tive work en­vi­ron­ments, ac­cept­able pack­ag­ing and favourable en­vi­ron­men­tal con­trols that fos­ter a healthy do­mes­tic and ex­port mar­ket,” the TTMA says.  “A lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers’ prod­uct qual­i­ty, pric­ing and mar­ket­ing, must be glob­al­ly com­pet­i­tive to sur­vive. We are no longer lim­it­ed to, or in­su­lat­ed by, do­mes­tic mar­kets.”

“While the TTMA’s ex­port strat­e­gy des­ig­nates the pri­vate sec­tor as the in­flu­encer, it al­so rec­og­nizes com­po­nents that the Gov­ern­ment must lead and in­flu­ence,” the busi­ness lob­by adds.  “We have re­viewed Gov­ern­ment’s strat­e­gy for the sec­tor and are pleased that both our As­so­ci­a­tion and the Pub­lic Sec­tor are unit­ed in pur­pose to re­alise an ex­pan­sion of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, grow ex­ports, in­crease for­eign ex­change earn­ings and pro­vide more job op­por­tu­ni­ties for cit­i­zens.”