Nestlé’s de­ci­sion to ex­plore the sale of its dairy and juices busi­ness has ig­nit­ed a fresh po­lit­i­cal bat­tle over the state of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, with the Gov­ern­ment in­sist­ing that in­vestor con­fi­dence is ris­ing, while the Op­po­si­tion ar­gues that re­cent poli­cies are mak­ing the coun­try less com­pet­i­tive.

Last week, dur­ing a meet­ing with staff, Nestlé in­formed em­ploy­ees it had be­gun a strate­gic re­view of its Trinidad and To­ba­go op­er­a­tions as part of a wider glob­al re­struc­tur­ing and was ex­plor­ing the pos­si­ble sale of its dairy and juices busi­ness. More than 200 work­ers are em­ployed at the com­pa­ny’s fa­cil­i­ty on the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way, Val­sayn.

The de­vel­op­ment dom­i­nat­ed dis­cus­sion yes­ter­day as Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma “Ka­ma” Ma­haraj and for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning of­fered sharply con­trast­ing as­sess­ments of the coun­try’s in­vest­ment cli­mate.