The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) is ex­press­ing hope that po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sions do not hurt trade re­la­tions be­tween lo­cal busi­ness­es and the Cari­com com­mu­ni­ty.

TTMA CEO Dr Mahin­dra Ramdeen made the com­ment yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing me­dia re­ports that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­tends to cut fund­ing to Cari­com, af­ter she ob­ject­ed to the reap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Ramdeen said the TTMA will not en­gage in po­lit­i­cal con­flict but stressed Cari­com’s im­por­tance to the lo­cal econ­o­my, not­ing the re­gion ac­count­ed for an es­ti­mat­ed 80 per cent of T&T’s non-en­er­gy ex­ports.