Think big

THOUSANDS of people should be trained each year in creating crafts for export urged Dr Tim Gopeesingh on Wednesday last week at a parliamentary hearing into the running of the Export Centres Company Ltd (ECCL).

As chair of Parliament’s Public Accounts Enterprises Committee (PAEC), he said the ECCL usually trained about 200 people per year, but to meet the export market they should be training thousands.

Gopeesingh said, “Your possibility is big but I’m not getting the picture that you are expanding your horizon but are thinking inwardly. I’d like you to re-consider your mandate.” He suggested the ECCL seek out individuals from institutions like St Jude’s Home and the Women’s Prison to train to make craft for export. The company should also forge links with the National Training Agency, YTEPP and Metal Industries Company, he added.

Committee member Fitzgerald Hinds was keen on the thrust into crafts and praised the quality of ceramics he had just bought on Macoya Road, Tunapuna, and said every woman in TT should seek out the “cloth jewellery” offered at ECCL craft markets. However, he said someone was needed to be the voice of the ECCL, urging, “Someone must drive the thing.”

While ECCL CEO Susan Narine said the company’s original mandate was to train single-mothers, ECCL deputy chairman Anna Thompson said nowadays people with university degrees had left their jobs to create art and craft items for sale at craft markets.

“Those people are also our target,” Thompson said. “These are people who we can easily build and so shorten the pathway between production and export.”

Otherwise Thompson said, in TT, there was now a challenge to get hold of local craft. Referring to tourists, she added, “People want to buy things from TT. You don’t want to come to TT and buy something labelled ‘Made in China.’”

Saying TT had great artisans, she said items would sell if relatively cheap and made in big quantities.

Thompson prayed the Sandals Hotel deal for Tobago could be resurrected because hotels usually used a lot of local craft.

“The market is definitely there.” Thompson said the company was exploring establishing outlets for craft sales at the Cruise Ship Complex, Queens Park Savannah and Down town, all in Port of Spain.