Tunapuna-Piarco Regional Corporation

and we are looking to launch about five more throughout the region. But these have morphed into more than just people vending. They have now become tourist attractions – people come to the region to these places to eat totally different types of food. Where we see ourselves adding the most value to our businesses is on that local level now. How do we impact those people? “So all our rents are subsidized at these vending parks and we still turn our profits as a sustainable project. We’re looking at the eco- tourism market as well, because those things will impact our communities, along with all the big multi-nationals coming in. We do have big e-tech parks on the estate, and aluminum production is being incentivized in my region through the Central Government. While we are trying to help the local people who are directly impacted by things like COVID.” BVC: Have you introduced any ‘green’ initiatives and upgrades to technology? Robinson: “Environmentally, we have moved all our bulbs in the parks to LED and shortened the hours of operation so there is less power consumption. There are also plans developed two years ago for a program to sort solid waste, in the first instance, and then move to recycling. That project was stalled last year because of COVID. “As for technological advances, because of the pandemic impact on the way we run our organization we have started to introduce tools that were already available but not used by the regional corporation. For example, most of our local administrative meetings have been done via Zoom, which was new for us. We’ve also moved most of our forms online to give people easier access. A lot of our meetings with the Ministry happen online as well. I’m friendly with a lot of the decision makers, so I use ‘water cooler’ conversation skills to get more for my region, but it’s not as easy online.” to the airport and the airport industry are on mandatory vacation or mandatory furlough. So we have diverse industry sectors, including Blanchisseuse, which has fishing and ecotourism, and we also have Trincity Mall and Macoya Industrial Estate.” BVC: Do you encourage small businesses? Robinson: “The industrial parks incentivize manufacturing and distribution but as the Corporation we’ve chosen to focus on local economic development. Because of COVID, many people with the skillsets to operate in various industries have fallen on difficult times because companies have gotten leaner, which is a good thing in business but bad for employment. So we have a large number who want to do street food, street vending, and so we’ve tried to structure that. “We have one operation now in Eddie Hart Orange Grove Savannah (a popular sports park)