NO PURCHASER SELECTED FOR NFM RICE MILL

CCNTV6

Exploring its options. That according to the Ministry of Trade and Industry is the present state of affairs concerning the rice mill belonging to National Flour Mills.   But, the government is hoping to revamp this country's rice industry.   Alicia Boucher tells us more from a meeting of the House of Representatives.

Transcript

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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