00:00Concerning the divestment of the National Flower Mill's rice mill at
00:04Carlson Field, which was decided upon by the government in 2016, Minister of Trade
00:10and Industry Paula Gopi-Skoon is making one thing clear.
00:13Discussions with interested parties are purely exploratory at this time. The
00:18Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has not selected any
00:22prospective purchaser for the NFM rice mill. The minister highlights that in
00:272017 a public tender was issued by NFM inviting requests for proposals for the
00:34rice mill from suitable applicants. Bids were submitted by four local investors
00:40however after thorough evaluation none of these were accepted by the
00:44government at that time. Given the importance of the mill in facilitating
00:49Trinidad and Tobago's food security, the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and
00:53Fisheries with the involvement of the Ministry of Trade and Industry through
00:57NFM are exploring the possibility of revitalizing and modernizing the rice
01:04industry in Trinidad and Tobago. She says it includes rice milling and packaging
01:09and investments including that from foreign investors are welcome. Gopi-Skoon
01:15points to two delegations from India which visited TNT to look at investment
01:20opportunities. One of them was Hafed, a government-owned Apex cooperative in the
01:26Haryana state in India providing a range of agricultural consumer products.
01:31Hafed has 17 district offices and 19 processing mills for items such as rice,
01:37sugar, oils, tumeric, seeds etc in the Haryana state. It processes over 2.3
01:44million metric tons of commodities annually and has an annual turnover of
01:49approximately 1.6 billion US dollars. During their visit to this country
01:54officials from Hafed were hosted by NFM to tour the rice mill. In terms of any
01:59business opportunities in that realm for the local farmers, Minister Gopi-Skoon
02:05has this to say. With regard to our local farmers, the discussions are really very
02:11much only with the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries.
02:14Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
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