Senator the Honourable Paula Gopee-Scoon, Minister of Trade and Industry, along with senior executives from InvesTT Limited and the Ministry of Trade and Industry visited the Phoenix Park Industrial Estate (PPIE) on Friday 8th January, 2021. The team met with officials of Evolving Tecknologies and Enterprise Development Company Limited (eTeck), Beijing Construction Engineering Group Co. Ltd. (BCEG) and several local sub-contractors to acquire a first-hand perspective of the ongoing and completed project activities.
During her visit Minister Gopee-Scoon underscored the importance of the timely operationalization of the State-of–the-Art Industrial Estate to the country’s economic development and further diversification efforts. Minister Gopee-Scoon was particularly encouraged that 81% of the labour force recruited for the project thus far had been sourced locally, which exceeds the current obligations by the main Contractor, Beijing Construction Engineering Group (BCEG). In the upcoming months as construction activities are ramped up, the Minister was informed that the total number of employees in the project would be approximately 1,000 persons including management, skilled and unskilled workers.
To date, there are several active local and international investment leads for the Park which are being pursued by InvesTT to ensure that tenancy flows upon completion. According to Minister Gopee-Scoon “the Park has already and continues to create invaluable opportunities for jobs and opens the way for new commercial and foreign direct investments into Trinidad and Tobago’s non-energy sector.”
The PPIE, which is 145 acres in size, is sub-divided into 78 leasable land lots and includes five (5) factory shells. Upon completion at the end of November 2021, it will provide the necessary economic space and infrastructure for firms in the areas of light and advanced manufacturing, assembly, logistics and distribution and information and communication technology (ICT) industries.
