Minister Pierre Calls for Right Mindset from Local Manufacturers

Contact: John Emmanuel

Thursday, October 12, 2000 - Commerce and Industry Minister, Honourable Philip J. Pierre, has called upon local manufactures to make the best use of opportunities being made available to them by government. Minister Pierre says in the face of mounting pressures from globalization, manufacturers must possess the right mindset, if they are to remain competitive.

“We understand the infant industry argument.  We understand that our local manufacturers need to get incentives and this is exactly why government has increased the amount of local incentives given to manufacturers. That is the reason why government is offering to them a consumption tax rebate despite the fact that we had to follow the rules of the CET and increase the consumption tax,” said Minister Pierre.

According to him, “Government, in its wisdom and in trying to augment the incentives available to local manufacturers, removed the consumption tax all together. What is left to happen now is that local manufactures have to get themselves in a mindset to use the available opportunities. The government stands ready to assist and these seminars and training programmes show our intent to guide the sector and to ensure that they are ready for competition.”  

He suggested that optimizing the use of technology will be the key to economic success and competitiveness for local manufactures.

Meantime the Small Enterprise Development Unit (SEDU) and the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards, on Thursday, October 12, 2000 grouped several micro and small business operators together for an ISO Management Awareness Seminar. SEDU’s Director Peter Lorde says the seminar is just one of many activities aimed at facilitating the sustainable development of small enterprises on the island, through pro-active measures.

“With the advent of globalization and all those other fancy terms which basically mean that anybody can trade with anybody at any time, we need to get our business people ready and in a competitive mode and mindset, do all the little things that are necessary to make us competitive.

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