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CCNTV6
  • 5 months ago
Transcript
00:0030% of the country's gross domestic product came from small and medium enterprises in 2024
00:06and more than 200,000 people gained employment compared to 180,000 employed pre-COVID-19 pandemic.
00:16It represents an 11% employment increase. That's according to president of the T&T Manufacturers
00:22Association, Dale Parson, who praises the Ex-Im Bank's support for manufacturers to purchase raw
00:28materials, saying it has helped in generating foreign exchange and it is monitored by the bank
00:35to ensure that only raw materials are purchased. In 2024, manufacturers repatriated over 30% of the
00:44funds allocated for raw material purchases. That means it resulted for every dollar we brought back
00:50in a dollar and 30 cents. 87% of Ex-Im Bank's manufacturer's funding is directed to SMEs. 87%.
01:01Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of the TTMA Ramish Ramdean says,
01:06Forex is the backbone of the business sector and in order to obtain what is needed,
01:11exportation of goods and services is critical. He says the TTMA is doing all that it can,
01:17including providing training, forming partnerships and engaging in trade missions with three planned
01:23for later this year to China, New York and Chile. However, Ramdean states that the environment in
01:29which the business sector operates is rife with challenges. At the factory gates in Trinidad and
01:35Tobago, we produce some of the best quality and standard of goods in the whole of the entire region.
01:42is the inefficiencies, is the bureaucracies, is the ease of doing business challenges that allow us
01:50to be uncompetitive. We just continue to ask that the enabling environment is created by those in
01:57charge to create that enabling environment. Minister of Trade, Investment and Tourism,
02:02Satya Kama-Maharad says the government is working on these issues as part of the economic
02:07transformation of the country. The government is focused on strengthening the country's export
02:13ecosystem from trade facilitation and logistics to market access, capacity building and digital
02:22innovation. These efforts are aimed at expanding the reach of made in TNT into high potential markets.
02:31We also modernize in regulatory systems to improve the ease of doing business.
02:39Maharad says an aggressive five-year plan is in place to increase TNT's export revenues.
02:46The TTMA's Trade and Investment Convention 2025, under the theme Business Beyond Borders,
02:53is paying specific attention to networking, with 350 booths available compared to 180 in the previous year.
03:02And over 3,900 buyers with over 350 B2B meetings arranged by the TTMA.
03:11The outcome of these meetings will bring buyers to us and contract manufacturing arrangements,
03:17service arrangements.
03:17The TTMA says since the TIC's inception in 1999, 1.2 billion U.S. dollars has been generated from trade
03:26on the flow, and there are bigger plans this year.
03:29The goal is to move that needle to 1.3 billion, an additional 100 million in trade to be generated.
03:36This is on the floor we're talking about over the next three days.
03:41Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
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