The Manufacturer Newsletter 2022

Advocacy by general definition from the Merriam-
Webster dictionary is: “the act or process of
supporting a cause or proposal” on behalf of united
individuals, businesses and organizations. The
TTMA concentrates these individuals and firms
around manufacturing and then represents their
causes and interests in the wider environment of
Trinidad and Tobago’s socio-economic landscape.
The years 2020-21 have been a period in which
this goal was tested with the membership seeing
and experiencing the benefits of such a wealth of
organization and unity. The top three benefits of
TTMA’s dedication and loyalty to members have
been: (1) protecting members interests; (2) building
partnerships and alliances and (3) increasing
engagement and reach. Over the past two years and
as the country and world continue to emerge from
the pandemic, these benefits of TTMA’s advocacy
have materialized in a variety of forms.
Through the lockdown parts of the pandemic period,
the TTMA helped its membership transition to or
strengthen their online presence with recurrent, ondemand
training courses for various staff. During
this time, the TTMA helped the manufacturing sector
retool and refocus on parts of their operations that
during normal operations, are given little attention.
The TTMA was able to lobby the government to
keep some manufacturers’ doors open, staff safely
employed as well as arranging a variety of passes
and operational exemptions. Working closely with
relevant ministries also allowed the TTMA to be
involved with the nation’s ‘Vaccinate to Operate’
campaign. TTMA mobilized its Board of Directors
and Secretariat and deployed all resources with the
support of the membership to dispense over 40,000
vaccination shots to those who wanted to protect
themselves.
Simultaneously, TTMA continued to work with
various agencies to ensure that business could
be facilitated despite the challenging conditions.
Another example of this is in finding an alternative
way of conducting trade missions that were still not
physically possible. In the last quarter of 2021, TTMA
pivoted to virtual trade missions to Curacao, Antigua
and Barbuda and Grenada as these countries were
identified as export markets of interests. More than
one hundred virtual business meetings were held
with companies from different sectors during these
missions ensuring that business continued. With
face-to-face meetings being still high risk, TTMA
continued with an intense line up of webinars. Some
of the key ones were with agencies such as CARICOM
Private Sector Organization, exporTT, Ministry of
Trade and Industry, Trinidad and Tobago Bureau
of Standards and Caribbean Export Development
Agency (CEDA).
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