Unicell Paper Mills cops ‘Exporter of the Year’ award

Unicell’s Director, Raju Sharma was on hand to accept the award on his company’s behalf as well as the award for most outstanding performer in the Printing, Publishing and Paper Converter category. Riad Shakeer, Managing Director of Calypso Marine, received the Rookie of the Year trophy at the awards ceremony held at the Prime Minister’s Residence and Diplomatic Centre, St Anns.

Eight winners were chosen from 28 nominees for excellence in different categories. Companies were nominated for the awards by exporting more than $500,000 in non-energy products and services to regional and international markets.

They were assessed according to their growth as a percentage of the value of the firm’s exports the year before, the firm’s percentage growth relative to overall growth within the sector, and the number of new countries exported to for the year.

Aside from Unicell’s win in the printing category, Metal Designs and Concepts Limited(MDC- UM) won in the Assembly Type and Related Industries category. The award in the Chemical and Non-Metallic Minerals category went to Pres-T-Con Limited; the Export Agriculture award was won by fishing company, Henry Meyer; the Food and Beverage category was won by Humming Bird Grains Limited; Miscellaneous Manufacturing was won by Geneva Enterprises Limited; the award for Textiles, Garments, Footwear and Headwear went to Suntan Tee Shirt Factory Limited, and E-Zee Lumber Limited won the award in the Wood and Related Products category.

New award categories were introduced this year to honour manufacturers who were successful in entering new, untapped markets, those who have consistently shown growth in exports, and exporters who reached internationalisation status. The Enterprise Award went to Imanex Limited, while Suntan received the award for Persistency. Platinum awardees, who will be inducted into the Business Development Company’s (BDC)virtual Hall of Fame, are National Flour Mills, Trinidad Cement Limited and Trinidad Distillers Limited.

The BDC and RBTT Bank are part sponsors of the awards. BDC President, Albert Chow, said the company has chosen this year to focus on getting manufacturers ready for success by ensuring products and services are geared for success.

For the year already, the BDC has launched its Trade Information Facility, the Trinidad and Tobago Export Directory, the Quality and Environment Management Systems Programme in conjunction with the Bureau of Standards, an upgraded smeXchange.com website, and hosted an Export Awareness Month in June. He added that the BDC has also been conducting a Meet the Exporters exercise.

“We want to give assurances to the exporters that the BDC is an organisation that is very flexible, and will rapidly change to meet your needs, not only in export development, but will seek to provide all the products and services that will lead TT companies to be internationally competitive to succeed locally against the best competitors worldwide.

Also, to succeed internationally against all the competition in whichever markets you may consider your targets,”Chow said.