Business View Caribbean - January 2016 49
This last responsibility of the TTMA – generating mar-
ket expansion - is one that Ramdeen is particularly fo-
cused on. One of the Association’s “flagship events” is
its yearly Trinidad Investment Convention (TIC), a gath-
ering of over 500 regional and international buyers,
2000 local professionals and decision makers from
the public and private sectors, and 800 small business
entrepreneurs from dozens of countries around the
world. According to Ramdeen, the TIC presents “an op-
portunity for investors wanting to come to Trinidad and
Tobago to partner with local counterparts in any invest-
ment.” It would be difficult to argue with TIC’s consis-
tent record of success in this arena. Over the past 14
years, the TIC has facilitated more than $450 million
in trade deals and has become one of the Caribbean’s
biggest business-to-business events.
Ramdeen also stresses the TTMA’s charge of seeking
out new markets by reaching out beyond the country’s
shores. “We want to increase and expand our missions
to other countries. We want to seek out new markets
– for example, Cuba. There’s been a lot of talk about
Cuba opening up. And we’d like to see how we can pen-
etrate Cuba in terms of the goods and services that we
produce here in Trinidad and Tobago; and we’re looking
at the Central American countries, as well.”
The TTMA instituted a new program this past year, and
Ramdeen speaks about it enthusiastically: “We want
to reward and recognize manufacturers for the excep-
tional job that they are doing.” So the Association has
created a “Manufacturer’s Award” in order to “reward
manufacturers in terms of their production capabilities,
their export capabilities, getting into new markets, etc.”
In 2015, Trinidad and Tobago is one of the wealthi-
est and most developed nations in the Caribbean. As
the county’s manufacturing sector continues to grow
and mature, it will likewise continue to be supported,
championed and represented by the Trinidad & Toba-
go Manufacturers’ Association, which, for over half a
century, has been a driving force of the island nation’s
economy.
