By Vernon Khelawan Thursday, April 22 2010

The annual Trade and Investment Convention (TIC) organised by the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers Association (TTMA) has been described as “the flagship annual event” of the organisation by its Chief Executive Officer Natasha Mustapha.

Speaking to Business Day recently, Mustapha said the TIC was in line with the TTMA’s objective to “showcase and increase opportunities for our members and TIC is an excellent platform for doing just that.”

She insisted the TIC was a platform. “It is a networking platform where you can meet service providers, distributors, suppliers of raw materials and other people with whom you can network.”

In an interview session with representatives of some of the event’s main sponsors, Carl Francis, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, a strong supporter of TIC, said, “From the perspective of the ministry, TIC has become a signal event on the annual calendar in the trade environment, since it brings to the forefront results of efforts of the services and goods sectors.

“And the fact that this largest regional trade show is held here, speaks volumes to what we have accomplished and where we are going,” he added.

While John Alvi, executive vice president, Enterprise Services at TSTT chose not to call the TIC a “flagship event”, he said, “for this company it was the most important business to business event that we do.”

TSTT, which has been associated with the event for many years and more recently as a sponsor, has recognised the event’s growth and as a direct result Alvi disclosed, TSTT had actually increased its sponsorship and had brought on board for this year’s show one of its key sponsors for research and motion – Blackberry.

Alvi added that TIC also allows for TSTT to put all of its products and services together in one group, but more than that he pointed out, it will “bring some of our experts to the booth” where visitors can have dialogue on the various products and services.

While Alvi admits that newspaper and television advertising creates awareness, speaking to someone with product knowledge assists greatly in the understanding of product capability. “So it’s great when we can get the dialogue going with customers,” he said.

Speaking for First Citizens Bank, Sekou Mark, general manager, Corporate Banking echoed the TTMA’s description of TIC as a “true flagship event in respect of Trinidad and Tobago” and he insisted that the show “really shows off the best and the brightest with respect to our manufacturing and service industries.”

Speaking to the benefits to be gained by participants in the TIC, Mustapha said participants could learn a lot from others from across the world in terms of “new technology, new standards and new demands, whether it be green manufacturing or e-manufacturing, so it is a learning experience as well,” she said.

Mustapha said the event exposes “our manufacturers and the rest of the Caribbean as well, to new ideas, new products, new technology as well as new trends in the marketplace.”

Referring to the global financial meltdown, the TTMA boss believes that the situation could be a blessing in disguise in that it could provide a chance for individuals and companies “to reassess what they do and how they do it, which can probably provide some opportunities for niche and specialised manufacturing and given the fact that many of our companies are small, will allow them to be able to adapt a little faster if trends change, so we think the TIC is an opportunity to explore all these possible avenues.”

PS Francis addressing the question of benefits saw another dimension of the TIC when he said, “When we see goods on display; when we see those who are here checking on what we have, it gives us a chance to understand and appreciate what is out there and what we’re up against.

“It also gives us the opportunity to know how we must tweak our own production processes; how we must tweak our factories etc., to ensure that standards are met; to ensure that labelling is correct….so we see the competition; we get a chance to show what we have and the TIC brings to the fore TT at its finest; it shows the nation parading its wares; it shows what we have accomplished and it shows where we can go,” added Francis.

“When we look at what the benefits are for First Citizens,” explained Mark, “we like to look at the three Bs – it helps us to build Brand; it helps us to build Business and it helps us to build the Bottom line.”

He said there would be more than 200 companies participating in the TIC this year and as a major bank in TT, “many of these would already be our customers, but I’m hoping we can get increased business from them through cross-selling and we can get new customers from inside and outside of Trinidad and Tobago.”

First Citizens is committed to supporting the TIC and want to play our role in helping build the brand that the TIC has built, moreso “if we are going to show the world what is the best of Trinidad and Tobago.”

The 11th edition of the annual Trade and Investment Convention (TIC) will take place at a new venue this year. The move to the luxurious Hyatt Regency Hotel and Conference Centre on the waterfront in P Port-of-Spain, is expected to be as successful as any other.

Assuring there was nothing untoward in the venue change, Mustapha said, “We’ve changed before. First we were at the Chaguaramas Convention Centre, then we were at the Hilton, then at the Centre of Excellence and now we’re at the Hyatt Regency.

“We believe the new location will bring its own challenges, but we think there’ll be increased convenience and luxury for overseas visitors in particular and that was one of the key reasons for the venue switch. We think this is a positive move and that the show being in the centre of Port-of-Spain, will prove to be more convenient for a lot of our business persons,” she added.

The Trade and Investment Convention will run from May 19 to 22 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Port-of-Spain.