Ramkissoon elected TTMA president

An­drea Perez Sobers

Emile Ramkissoon has been elect­ed pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, step­ping in­to the role at a time of mount­ing pres­sure on the coun­try’s non-en­er­gy sec­tor and grow­ing calls for de­ci­sive pol­i­cy ac­tion.

His elec­tion took place to­day at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad dur­ing the TTMA’s 70th an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing and lead­er­ship con­fer­ence.

In a force­ful in­au­gur­al ad­dress, Ramkissoon, an at­tor­ney and man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­ec­u­tive, made it clear that his pres­i­den­cy will be de­fined by ad­vo­ca­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and re­sults, as he con­front­ed what he de­scribed as per­sis­tent struc­tur­al bar­ri­ers fac­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers.

He point­ed di­rect­ly to out­stand­ing VAT re­funds and lim­it­ed ac­cess to for­eign ex­change through the Ex­port-Im­port Bank as two of the most ur­gent is­sues chok­ing busi­ness growth, warn­ing that these con­straints are af­fect­ing cash flow, in­vest­ment and ex­port ex­pan­sion.

Ramkissoon al­so took aim at pol­i­cy in­con­sis­ten­cies, cau­tion­ing that pro­pos­als such as 100 per cent con­tain­er in­spec­tions at ports would se­vere­ly un­der­mine trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion and set the coun­try back decades. He ar­gued that such mea­sures run counter to glob­al best prac­tice and threat­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s com­pet­i­tive­ness with­in the re­gion.

Fram­ing the TTMA as a “pow­er­house” of more than 750 mem­bers, he said the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­mains cen­tral to shap­ing trade pol­i­cy, even as it op­er­ates large­ly be­hind the scenes through ne­go­ti­a­tion and lob­by­ing rather than pub­lic con­fronta­tion.

“We are pol­i­cy in­form­ers, not pol­i­cy­mak­ers,” he said, while in­sist­ing that the as­so­ci­a­tion’s ad­vo­ca­cy is ground­ed in da­ta, re­search and sus­tained en­gage­ment with gov­ern­ment.

Ramkissoon un­der­scored the grow­ing im­por­tance of the non-en­er­gy sec­tor, cit­ing its role in dri­ving eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty amid volatil­i­ty in glob­al en­er­gy mar­kets. He ar­gued that while man­u­fac­tur­ing can­not ful­ly re­place en­er­gy rev­enues, it re­mains crit­i­cal to for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion, job cre­ation and long-term eco­nom­ic re­silience.

The new pres­i­dent al­so high­light­ed the TTMA’s ex­pand­ing foot­print, point­ing to in­creased trade mis­sions, grow­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in its Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion, and stronger re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al link­ages as ev­i­dence of the sec­tor’s po­ten­tial.

At the same time, he called for a more en­abling busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment, urg­ing im­prove­ments in ease of do­ing busi­ness, time­ly VAT pay­ments, ef­fi­cient port op­er­a­tions and tar­get­ed sup­port for man­u­fac­tur­ers and SMEs.

Ramkissoon sig­nalled a more trans­par­ent and strate­gic ap­proach un­der his lead­er­ship, com­mit­ting to stronger com­mu­ni­ca­tion with mem­bers and ev­i­dence-based rec­om­men­da­tions to pol­i­cy­mak­ers.

His mes­sage to gov­ern­ment was di­rect, work with the sec­tor to un­lock growth and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.