CONTACT Magazine (Vol.18 No.3 – December 2018)

looking outwards
The will to
export
For decades, T&T has dreamed about a big jump in nonenergy
exports, enough to break dependence on oil and
gas. Is that about to happen at last? CONTACT sat down
with exporTT’s CEO Dietrich Guichard to find out
WORDS By: Joel Henry
photos courtesy: exportt
courtesy exportt
“
The current environment,” says Trade and Industry
Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon, “requires a more
aggressive approach to implementing government
policy aimed at growing exports to lessen the
country’s vulnerability and dependence on oil and gas.”
The Minister was speaking in November 2017 at the
National Export Facilitation Organisation of Trinidad and
Tobago, otherwise known as exporTT. New signage was
being unveiled at its Charlotte Street headquarters, which
was being renamed “Export House.” A symbolic change, but
symbols have meaning. And the change in signage reflects a
new approach and outlook for exporTT.
“Our approach is much more aggressive,” says Dietrich
Guichard, Chief Executive Officer. “There are a lot of things
that we are doing differently internally, and we are trying to
engage our clients more intimately.”
In this era of uncertain prices for Trinidad and Tobago’s
energy exports, a foreign exchange crunch, and the critical
need for diversification of the economy, the nation needs new
sources of export revenue.
The most recent figures out of the Ministry of Trade and
Industry (for October 2016 to September 2017) show that
TT$37 billion of the total TT$41 billion worth of exports were
energy-related. That’s 88%. This needs to change.
So what is exporTT doing to make it happen?
Dietrich Guichard, CEO, exporTT
14
Trinidad
and Tobago Chamber
of Industry and Commerce
www.chamber.org.tt/contact-magazine