TTMA signs partnership with GCS-USA

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) and Glob­al Com­pli­ance Ser­vice (GCS-USA) have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing to pro­vide TTMA mem­bers ac­cess to sub­sidised in­ter­na­tion­al ISO cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grams.

The agree­ment was signed by Dr Mahin­dra Ramesh Ramdeen, CEO of TTMA, and David Pope, Re­gion­al Di­rec­tor of GCS.

Un­der the terms, ap­proved lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers, im­porters, ex­porters, and dis­trib­u­tors may re­ceive sub­si­dies of up to 60 per­cent or US$10,000 per year, for a max­i­mum of US$30,000 over three years.

The pro­gram cov­ers cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for In­te­grat­ed Man­age­ment Sys­tems in­clud­ing ISO 9001 (Qual­i­ty Man­age­ment); ISO 14001 (En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment); ISO 45001 (Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty); and ESG (En­vi­ron­men­tal, So­cial, and Gov­er­nance) ver­i­fi­ca­tions.

Ramdeen said the ini­tia­tive is a mile­stone for the na­tion’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and not­ed that mem­bers will gain ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards and fi­nan­cial sup­port through the sub­sidy pro­gram.

David Pope un­der­scored that the part­ner­ship will help lo­cal com­pa­nies meet glob­al stan­dards and im­prove com­pet­i­tive­ness in in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

The MOU al­so in­cludes per­son­nel train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grams for com­pa­ny staff to sup­port the im­ple­men­ta­tion and main­te­nance of ISO man­age­ment sys­tems.

The part­ner­ship high­lights both or­ga­ni­za­tions’ com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing stan­dards, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and in­ter­na­tion­al ac­cess for Trinidad and To­ba­go busi­ness­es while strength­en­ing the coun­try’s role in glob­al trade.

El­i­gi­ble TTMA mem­bers can ap­ply for the sub­sidy pro­gram start­ing Jan­u­ary 1, 2026. In­ter­est­ed com­pa­nies are ad­vised to con­tact TTMA for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.