Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Gov­ern­ment will move to en­gage Nestlé of­fi­cials, fol­low­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny an­nounc­ing this week that it is re­view­ing its op­er­a­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go as part of a wider glob­al re­struc­tur­ing.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter con­firmed she has in­struct­ed the rel­e­vant min­is­ter to in­ter­vene.

“I have asked the Min­is­ter of Trade and Act­ing Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs to meet with Nestlé’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives to work on this mat­ter,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Al­so re­spond­ing to ques­tions yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo al­so sought to re­as­sure stake­hold­ers, not­ing that while the com­pa­ny’s re­view is a com­mer­cial de­ci­sion, the Gov­ern­ment is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the po­ten­tial im­pli­ca­tions for the lo­cal econ­o­my.

“Nestlé is re­view­ing its glob­al op­er­a­tions as a re­sult of a repri­ori­ti­sa­tion of its busi­ness mod­el. As a com­pa­ny in­volved in T&T, with a par­tic­u­lar role in the do­mes­tic dairy in­dus­try, those ac­tiv­i­ties are of in­ter­est to the State. “Nestlé will con­tin­ue to do what it con­sid­ers best for its own­ers. In the mean­time, we will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the de­vel­op­ments and en­gage in sce­nario plan­ning to en­sure that we can re­spond ap­pro­pri­ate­ly, so that the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, in par­tic­u­lar, is not ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed,”.

Their com­ments come a day af­ter Nestlé in­formed em­ploy­ees that it has be­gun a strate­gic re­view of its T&T op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing ex­plor­ing the pos­si­ble sale of its dairy and juices busi­ness.

More than 200 work­ers are em­ployed at the com­pa­ny’s man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty along the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way in Val­sayn. The an­nounce­ment was made dur­ing a meet­ing with em­ploy­ees on Thurs­day, led by Head of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca Pablo Wiech­ers, who trav­elled from Pana­ma.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s en­quiries, Nestlé T&Ts head of com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Siti Jones-Gor­don, stressed that the re­view re­mains in its ear­ly stages and that no fi­nal de­ci­sions have been tak­en.

She ex­plained that the ex­er­cise forms part of the com­pa­ny’s new glob­al strat­e­gy, which places greater em­pha­sis on nu­tri­tion, food, cof­fee, pet care and con­fec­tionery while re­duc­ing fo­cus on oth­er ar­eas of its port­fo­lio. Jones-Gor­don said the com­pa­ny is al­so as­sess­ing a third-par­ty dis­tri­b­u­tion mod­el in Trinidad and To­ba­go, adding that its ob­jec­tive through­out the re­view is to pre­serve jobs where pos­si­ble, pro­tect well-known lo­cal brands and main­tain con­ti­nu­ity across the val­ue chain.

She main­tained that Nestlé re­mains com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing a strong pres­ence in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean and will pro­vide fur­ther up­dates once de­ci­sions are made.

Mean­while, the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) said its ex­ec­u­tives met with com­pa­ny of­fi­cials on Wednes­day but were pro­vid­ed with lim­it­ed in­for­ma­tion about the re­view. The union is ex­pect­ed to meet with work­ers on Mon­day to dis­cuss the de­vel­op­ments.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, how­ev­er, has down­played con­cerns over the com­pa­ny’s an­nounce­ment. Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, TTMA Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Dr Ramesh Ramdeen said the as­so­ci­a­tion is not over­ly con­cerned at this stage, not­ing that com­pa­nies must con­tin­u­ous­ly re­view their busi­ness strate­gies to re­main com­pet­i­tive in an in­creas­ing­ly chal­leng­ing glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.

“The com­pa­ny has the right to strate­gise and im­prove its op­er­a­tions as it sees fit. The com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment in which busi­ness­es en­gage means they have to con­tin­u­ous­ly re­vis­it their busi­ness plans, change strat­e­gy and seek to be op­ti­mal, ef­fi­cient, and com­pet­i­tive. If these mea­sures are not pur­sued, they can be left be­hind in a com­pet­i­tive glob­al world.”