An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Prop­er­ty tax for busi­ness­es is not on the ta­ble at this time, ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon.

Fol­low­ing a fac­to­ry tour of Blue Wa­ters Prod­ucts at Or­ange Grove, Gopee-Scoon said, “If you look at the last bud­get there is no men­tion of an in­tro­duc­tion of prop­er­ty tax on busi­ness­es. I am sure it will come some­time in the fu­ture but there will be dis­cus­sion with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.”

The min­is­ter stressed that it is not part of the equa­tion right now.

Al­so com­ment­ing was Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) pres­i­dent Roger Roach, who re­ferred to the re­sponse by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert last year­when asked a ques­tion about the prop­er­ty tax for in­dus­tri­al prop­er­ties. Roach re­called that Im­bert said he would meet with the busi­ness stake­hold­ers to dis­cuss the is­sue be­fore im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Blue Wa­ters chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Pradeep Sub­ri­an said in 2024 ex­ports grew by 54 per cent and flavoured prod­ucts which are non-wa­ter grew ap­prox­i­mate­ly by 45 per cent.

“We pro­duce as a co-pack all Pep­si co-brands for lo­cal sales and dis­tri­b­u­tions which Vem­co Lim­it­ed does and al­so for the Bar­ba­dos mar­ket, through Vem­co. Al­so, Blue Wa­ters co-packs for Tampi­co and we have the sell­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion rights for the Cari­com coun­tries as well,” Sub­ri­an ex­plained.

Blue Wa­ters own­er Do­minic Hadeed said one of the oth­er ways to earn for­eign ex­change is to look at the oth­er bev­er­ages be­ing im­port­ed in­to the re­gion that could be man­u­fac­tured in it.

“We are just a wa­ter com­pa­ny. Some of our com­peti­tors may not want to pro­duce for oth­ers as it com­petes with their brands. Blue Wa­ters has no horse in that race. So, we can say any­body who is im­port­ing prod­ucts, pay­ing more du­ty and for­eign ex­change, bring it with the bev­er­age com­pa­ny and we will pro­duce it for you. Not on­ly Trinidad but in the re­gion,” said Hadeed.

 “That is an­oth­er way of sav­ing US cur­ren­cy in­to the coun­try, and you can still be im­port­ing prod­ucts in­to the coun­try. You can still be im­port­ing a full prod­uct and have it man­u­fac­tured lo­cal­ly, but still have some US in­puts, but a lot of lo­cal in­puts, from la­bels, raw ma­te­ri­als, to elec­tric­i­ty, wa­ter and wages,” Hadeed de­tailed.

He not­ed that there are a lot of things the bev­er­age com­pa­ny is look­ing at to be dif­fer­ent and unique.

“Some of the prod­ucts you may see us do­ing may not be our prod­ucts, but oth­er peo­ple’s prod­ucts. That is an­oth­er way of in­no­vat­ing as well.”

Asked how the com­pa­ny man­ages the for­eign ex­change crunch, Hadeed said it man­ages its day-to-day op­er­a­tions by a com­bi­na­tion of buy­ing from Re­pub­lic Bank and Ex­im­bank as well as gen­er­at­ing forex from ex­ports and buy­ing it lo­cal­ly.

“I would not say smooth sail­ing and even though we are grow­ing our ex­ports, we are al­so grow­ing our lo­cal sales. With our lo­cal sales, we do not have to use forex. We get by ex­cept when we have big cap­i­tal ex­pens­es, new equip­ment, and new lines. It is a bal­anc­ing act. I think all the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions play a role when they see you are mak­ing an ef­fort and not just gime gime. You are in­stead try­ing to buy lo­cal and ex­port,” he stat­ed.

The think­ing Hadeed said is once the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions give you sup­port now in the long run the es­tab­lish­ment will be less re­liant on them and that is the aim.

Speak­ing about ex­pan­sion, Hadeed said the goal is to open two or three more fac­to­ries in the next 10 to 13 years in the re­gion.

Last year, Blue Wa­ters  Prod­ucts Ltd copped the ti­tle of “Man­u­fac­tur­er of the Year Large 2023” at the TTMA Pres­i­dent’s Din­ner and Awards.