TTMA signs AI trade intelligence deal to sharpen export strategy

AN­DREA PEREZ-SOBERS

Se­nior Re­porter

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has moved to deep­en the use of da­ta and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in ex­port de­vel­op­ment, sign­ing a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing with Wiz­dom­CRM Nex­Gen An­a­lytix Ltd to de­ploy a Glob­al Ex­port AI Plat­form aimed at im­prov­ing how man­u­fac­tur­ers as­sess and en­ter for­eign mar­kets.

The agree­ment for­malis­es a part­ner­ship that will see TTMA mem­bers gain ac­cess to an AI-dri­ven sys­tem de­signed to con­vert large vol­umes of trade and man­u­fac­tur­ing da­ta in­to prac­ti­cal mar­ket in­tel­li­gence. The plat­form is ex­pect­ed to sup­port TTMA-led trade mis­sions and day-to-day ex­port plan­ning by giv­ing com­pa­nies ac­cess to mar­ket re­search, con­sump­tion trends, com­pet­i­tive analy­sis, and des­ti­na­tion-spe­cif­ic in­sights through a cen­tral dig­i­tal dash­board.

At the core of the plat­form is a per­son­alised AI as­sis­tant, Is­abel­la, which users can query in re­al time. The tool is trained to as­sist man­u­fac­tur­ers and mi­cro, small, and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es with ex­port readi­ness as­sess­ments, prod­uct po­si­tion­ing, pric­ing con­sid­er­a­tions, lo­gis­tics plan­ning, and mar­ket en­try de­ci­sions. The aim, ac­cord­ing to those in­volved, is to re­duce guess­work and im­prove de­ci­sion-mak­ing be­fore firms com­mit re­sources to new mar­kets.

TTMA chief ex­ec­u­tive Dr Mahin­dra Ramesh Ramdeen de­scribed the agree­ment as a shift in how trade sup­port is de­liv­ered to lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers, say­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion is plac­ing tech­nol­o­gy at the cen­tre of its ex­port de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy. He said the use of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence would al­low ex­porters to ap­proach in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets with stronger ev­i­dence and clear­er com­mer­cial sig­nals rather than re­ly­ing on in­stinct or lim­it­ed in­for­ma­tion.

The ini­tia­tive aligns with TTMA’s Tech­nol­o­gy and In­no­va­tion strate­gic pil­lar for the 2025 to 2030 pe­ri­od and re­flects a wider push by busi­ness groups to im­prove com­pet­i­tive­ness as man­u­fac­tur­ers face ris­ing costs, tighter mar­gins, and in­creas­ing com­pe­ti­tion in re­gion­al and ex­tra-re­gion­al mar­kets.

Un­like gener­ic an­a­lyt­ics tools, the Glob­al Ex­port AI Plat­form has been de­vel­oped us­ing Caribbean-fo­cused da­ta sets. Wiz­dom­CRM Nex­Gen An­a­lytix said the sys­tem is trained on CARI­COM trade flows, Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice da­ta, and in­ter­na­tion­al sources such as UN Com­trade, the World Trade Or­ga­ni­za­tion, and TradeMap. The in­ten­tion is to pro­vide in­sights that are more rel­e­vant to Caribbean ex­porters, par­tic­u­lar­ly those tar­get­ing re­gion­al mar­kets or niche op­por­tu­ni­ties be­yond CARI­COM.

Josi­ah Ba­j­nath, di­rec­tor of Wiz­dom­CRM, said the plat­form is de­signed to sup­port com­pa­nies at dif­fer­ent stages of growth, from small firms ex­plor­ing their first ex­port sale to larg­er man­u­fac­tur­ers seek­ing to re­fine dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works or ex­pand prod­uct reach. He said the tech­nol­o­gy us­es da­ta an­a­lyt­ics and lan­guage mod­els to gen­er­ate ex­port strate­gies in re­al time, al­low­ing com­pa­nies to test sce­nar­ios and ad­just plans quick­ly as con­di­tions change.

From TTMA’s per­spec­tive, the plat­form is al­so ex­pect­ed to im­prove the ef­fec­tive­ness of trade mis­sions by iden­ti­fy­ing pri­or­i­ty mar­kets and prod­ucts in ad­vance, rather than treat­ing mis­sions as large­ly ex­plorato­ry ex­er­cis­es. By analysing de­mand trends, tar­iff struc­tures, and com­pet­i­tive land­scapes ahead of time, the as­so­ci­a­tion ex­pects ex­porters to ar­rive bet­ter pre­pared and more tar­get­ed in their en­gage­ments.

The agree­ment comes as man­u­fac­tur­ers in­creas­ing­ly look for new mar­kets to off­set slow­er do­mes­tic de­mand and for­eign ex­change con­straints. Ac­cess to time­ly, cred­i­ble da­ta has be­come a key fac­tor in whether small­er firms are will­ing or able to take on the risk of ex­port­ing. TTMA of­fi­cials be­lieve that low­er­ing the cost and com­plex­i­ty of mar­ket in­tel­li­gence could help broad­en par­tic­i­pa­tion in ex­port ac­tiv­i­ty be­yond the largest play­ers.

While the plat­form will not re­move struc­tur­al chal­lenges such as lo­gis­tics costs or ac­cess to fi­nance, both par­ties ar­gue that bet­ter in­for­ma­tion can help firms nav­i­gate those con­straints more strate­gi­cal­ly. For TTMA, the part­ner­ship is part of a broad­er ef­fort to mod­ernise how the pri­vate sec­tor ap­proach­es trade de­vel­op­ment and to po­si­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go as a re­gion­al