By Clint Chan Tack Thursday, December 10 2009

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TRINIDAD and Tobago’s hosting of the Fifth Summit of Americas and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) may already be starting to pay some dividends.

Small and medium-sized businesses in the United States are looking for business partners in this country to help them survive the continued onslaught of the world financial crisis.

Should these partnerships take root, local business persons could be able to exploit emerging opportunities in the US through their new American partners.

In an interview with Business Day at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Conference Centre in Port-of-Spain last Thursday, Kim Jones, president of Maryland-based Jones International outlined the reasons why she was part of a new trade mission from Washington DC which was in the country last week. Jones explained that her company is an international development company.

“I work with a lot of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and small companies to help expand their businesses and their capabilities,”she stated

“I have been working with this mission for about a year now. The intent was to identify some small and emerging companies, minority owned and women-owned that could take advantage of an opportunity outside of the borders,” Jones added. The seven member delegation of which Jones was a member were all from the Washington DC region.

“We all represent different business areas. The delegates represent telecommunication, info technology, medical fields, hospitality. There is a film maker who is particularly interested in looking at filming opportunities in both Trinidad and in Tobago. We are little bit all over the place,” she said.

Jones is no stranger to TT, having visited this country 12 years ago to work with a non-profit organisation that was doing some work in the area of violence prevention. “I swore that I would come back,” she said. Jones said one of the reasons why she decided to return to TT is because

“it’s always an easy process because our economies are very similar.”

“The ways of doing business are very similar. I knew that this would be an easy way to build relationships as opposed to another country in the Caribbean,” Jones stated.

She added the fact that Government is seeking to diversify the economy away from the traditional energy sector which remains the main revenue earner for this country.

Against this background and knowing the seven fields in the non-energy sector which have been identified as part of Government’s economic diversification thrust, Jones said the mission’s organisers tried to locate business persons in the US who work in these fields.

The non-energy areas identified include fish and fish processing, packaging and printing, merchant marine, yachting, food and beverage and entertainment.

Asked if the members were alerted to potential business opportunities in TT as a result of the business fora which preceded this country’s hosting of the Fifth Summit of the Americas in April and the CHOGM last month, Jones replied: “They were made aware. So we were given information on contacts in advance. The Ministry of Trade and Industry has been particularly helpful in that area. Making sure we knew who the proper contacts were in advance.” She explained that this gave the delegates the opportunity to do some research on their prospective business partners and make prior introductions if necessary.

Asked why small and medium businesses in the US were exceptionally keen to do business with their counterparts in countries like TT, Jones cut to the chase. “There is very little trickle down. The economy has clearly impacted global nations all around the world. As money starts to flow, credit starts to flow and opportunities come online it is not trickling down yet in the US to the smaller businesses,” Jones explained. “Smaller businesses are feeling the pinch. They are going out of business. They are struggling. They are not getting the credit from the economic offices, the banks, the financial industries. They are trying to get any opportunity that’s available to partner to keep themselves afloat. That’s why this is so very important.”

She added that the members of the trade mission are “not coming looking for people to invest in them.” “They’re coming looking for opportunities to joint venture,” Jones said. Describing the crisis as a cyclical event, Jones stated: “This will all turn around eventually. It will continue to take time.” While there has been considerable focus in the US and other countries about the broader economic policies being taken to address the crisis, Jones believes that governments will ultimately play second fiddle to entrepreneurs in bringing the crisis to an end.

“Entrepreneurship is where the economy starts to pick up. When people start to invest in selling something, producing something and hiring other people. That’s what helps turn the economy around,” Jones declared. She explained that while the members of the trade mission want to speak with various government agencies while they are in TT, “they realise that things will moves a little bit faster probably business to business.”

Jones said the delegates are hoping to “work with someone who is in their same industry that is less in a policymaking role but more in another role of trying to do the same type of work and they can collaborate.” “We hope that the same partners that we get to meet with here, will seize the opportunity to come to the US and see what we may have to offer. We are hoping to have follow on,” she added.

Jones also revealed that women are “the fastest growing sector of business owners in the US.”. “We starting generally to outpace the men who are starting new companies and new enterprises,”

she said. Asked what were the reasons behind this growing trend, Jones said women are outpacing men educationally in the US and are not waiting to move up the corporate ladder in major companies.

Jones said many women are forming their own businesses and in so doing have managed to “crack that glass ceiling.”She added that she happy to see that there is an increasing number of women in TT who are going into business for themselves. During their visit, the delegation met with business persons from Trinidad at the Hyatt last Friday.

The mission was alsobriefed by representatives from the US Embassy in Port-of-Spain, the American Chamber of Commerce, the Tourism Development Corporation and other agencies about business opportunities in this country. They had the chance to interact with business persons from Tobago at a function by the Tobago House of Assembly on Saturday. The delegation left for Washington on Sunday