An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

T&T’s ex­ports to the Unit­ed King­dom and Eu­ro­pean mar­kets are grow­ing with lo­cal com­pa­nies re-en­ter­ing the space and new in­vest­ments on the hori­zon.

This was dis­closed by T&T’s com­mer­cial of­fi­cer to the Unit­ed King­dom and the Eu­ro­pean Union Adan­na Tay­lor.

She was ap­point­ed by the Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try in Ju­ly 2023 along with four oth­ers, as com­mer­cial of­fi­cers were deemed to be an in­te­gral part of the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to dri­ve non-en­er­gy trade and ex­ports.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tives are re­spon­si­ble for not on­ly pro­mot­ing trade in goods and ser­vices in the var­i­ous coun­tries they are as­signed to, but they are al­so re­quired to at­tract new in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties to T&T.

Tay­lor, who was in the coun­try last Thurs­day, held a face-to-face in­ter­view with Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian said there are a few man­u­fac­tur­ers that have re­cent­ly re-en­tered the UK mar­ket. They are KC Con­fec­tionery and RHS Mar­ket­ing, which re-en­tered with Karibbean Fla­vors.

She not­ed that KC Con­fec­tionery, which re-en­tered the mar­ket in Ju­ly 2024, shipped a 20-foot con­tain­er, which was a big ac­com­plish­ment.

The Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian reached out to the can­dy com­pa­ny and an of­fi­cial said the com­pa­ny was out of the UK mar­ket for be­tween eight months and one year, has gone back with the said dis­trib­u­tor, who they pre­ferred not to be named.

The of­fi­cial in­di­cat­ed that KC was con­sol­i­dat­ing with a lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­er and had to wait un­til that com­pa­ny was ready to ship.

The of­fi­cial said since re-en­ter­ing the mar­ket the can­dy com­pa­ny has been do­ing much bet­ter with wider dis­tri­b­u­tion, and it has moved from a quar­ter-foot con­tain­er to a 20-foot con­tain­er.

The com­mer­cial of­fi­cer not­ed that Kairi Choco­late Lim­it­ed did a small or­der to one of the pre­mier tai­lors in Lon­don and there are a few oth­er small­er brands that are now in the mar­ket since she has been in the UK.

Speak­ing about the big man­u­fac­tur­ers, she high­light­ed that As­so­ci­at­ed Brands is do­ing a great job with their Cheezie snacks, as one goes in­to any ma­jor re­tail­er in the UK and sees Cheezie on the shelf, which is a big deal.

“Carib Bear has al­so been very suc­cess­ful in the mar­ket. The com­pa­ny just got a new dis­trib­u­tor and has upped the ante with their prod­ucts. We see them in ma­jor re­tail­ers as well. An­gos­tu­ra is al­so per­form­ing well in the UK and Eu­ro­pean mar­kets with its bit­ters,” with wider dis­tri­b­u­tion, and it has moved from a quar­ter-foot con­tain­er to a 20-foot con­tain­er.

Ac­cord­ing t0 da­ta from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) in 2023, non-en­er­gy ex­ports to the Unit­ed King­dom (UK) stood at ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$88.4 mil­lion.

No­tably, it said a mid-year com­par­i­son re­veals that non-en­er­gy ex­ports surged from $22.1 mil­lion in the first half of 2023 to $46.9 mil­lion in the same pe­ri­od of 2024, rep­re­sent­ing an im­pres­sive 112 per cent in­crease.

This growth, the CSO re­port­ed, was dri­ven by strong per­for­mances in key prod­ucts such as aro­mat­ic bit­ters, processed foods, cur­ry, sauces and condi­ments, along­side al­co­holic and non al­co­holic bev­er­ages . These re­sults high­light the re­silience, di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, and grow­ing de­mand for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s unique prod­ucts in the UK mar­ket.

Tay­lor, who op­er­ates out of the T&T’s High Com­mis­sion­er build­ing in the up­scale Bel­gravia neigh­bour, said the com­mer­cial of­fice host­ed a trade and in­vest­ment round­table in No­vem­ber in Lon­don, at which 40 in­vestors were brought to­geth­er to learn about some spe­cif­ic in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties in this coun­try.  

“Since that meet­ing, we’ve had sev­er­al leads that have em­anat­ed and the dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing.”

Asked how soon the coun­try can see the fruition of the ef­forts, she said “As you know, the in­vest­ment pipeline is quite lengthy. So, it would take some years for those things to come to fruition.”

In ad­di­tion to the round­table, Tay­lor said she al­so at­tend­ed the UK Caribbean Trade and In­vest­ment Fo­rum last No­vem­ber in Lon­don with Sek­ou Al­leyne for­mer In­vesTT head, where they were able to dis­cuss and pro­mote this coun­try’s in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“We would hope that we would get some sig­nif­i­cant leads em­a­nat­ing from that.”

Giv­ing an overview as to oth­er in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, Tay­lor said four com­pa­nies have re­ceived fund­ing from the Unit­ed Na­tions ITC and the UK Trade Part­ner­ships Pro­gramme to par­tic­i­pate in the Birm­ing­ham Food and Drink Ex­po in April.  

Those com­pa­nies are Kairi Choco­lates, Twigs Teas, Ha­banero Pep­per, and Sa­vor the Isle.

Tay­lor not­ed that she works close­ly with T&T’s High Com­mis­sion­er Vish­nu Dhan­paul and re­lies on his ex­per­tise giv­en his back­ground as per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the Min­istry of Fi­nance for sev­er­al years.

Asked whether the state of emer­gency, which was im­ple­ment­ed in late De­cem­ber, is hav­ing an im­pact on at­tract­ing in­vest­ment, the com­mer­cial of­fi­cer con­fi­dent­ly said “No,” and that T&T re­mains an at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tion for in­vest­ment.

“We en­cour­age in­vestors to vis­it this coun­try to get a feel for our op­por­tu­ni­ties here,” said Tay­lor.

As to what is on the books for 2025, Tay­lor said the com­mer­cial of­fice has a packed sched­ule and would be host­ing some we­bi­na­rs to as­sist T&T man­u­fac­tur­ers with all of the pack­ag­ing and la­bel­ing guide­lines that are re­quired to get their prod­ucts in­to the UK and EU.

“We’re al­so go­ing to be host­ing a we­bi­nar fo­cus­ing on BR­CGS, which is a food -afe­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. I’m work­ing with Ex­port TT on that. The team is go­ing to do some small­er in­vest­ment pro­mo­tion sem­i­nars and ex­port pro­mo­tion sem­i­nars at the High Com­mis­sion,” she men­tioned.
Tay­lor al­so said the British De­part­ment of Busi­ness and Trade de­part­ment plans to host a trade mis­sion toT&T in May for the trade mis­sion, in a bid to strength­en ties fur­ther.

Chal­lenges  

The com­mer­cial of­fi­cer said the ma­jor chal­lenge would be as­sist­ing T&T ex­porters with get­ting their prod­ucts up to stan­dard.

“As you are aware, the mar­ket en­try re­quire­ments of the UK and the EU are very strin­gent,.  We want to en­sure that our man­u­fac­tur­ers are aware of what is re­quired to en­ter the mar­ket and hold their hands and guide them to en­sure that their prod­ucts are mar­ket-com­pli­ant,” Tay­lor dis­closed.

With this coun­try con­tin­u­ing to face the for­eign ex­change crunch, she en­cour­aged com­pa­nies, es­pe­cial­ly the SME sec­tor to ex­port to the UK and Eu­rope, as this would be able to gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change.

“Come and vis­it the mar­ket, get a feel of the mar­ket, and then re­al­ly fo­cus on the prod­ucts that would have the biggest val­ue,” she added.