Consumers and business enterprises operating locally have a regulatory body to help ensure business practices are fair, effective, and open.
The body is the Trinidad and Tobago Fair Trading Commission.
Established in 2020, the body seeks to create a fairer local trade environment for all business entities.
Chairman of the TTFTC, Dr. Ronald Ramkissoon, welcomed participants from the Office of Procurement Regulation, the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries, and the Trinidad and Tobago Bureau of Standards, as well as a number of other sectors, to its fifth meeting with key local regulators.
“In every economy, the goal of regulation includes some elements that generally promote investment and seek to foster an environment that encourages innovation, efficiency, and fairness while protecting and benefiting consumers and ensuring market stability.”
Of the 195 sovereign nations in the world, only two-thirds have competition agencies to regulate their markets.
“While competition policy and sector-specific regulation may appear to be at odds with each other, today we will explore how they can be interrelated and how, indeed, they are interrelated, and how they must work in tandem if we are going to achieve the overarching goal of sustainable economic growth for this economy.”
Dr. Ramkissoon offered a description of what would be considered an unfair trade environment.
“Fair competition, on the other hand, is grounded in the principles of high product quality, fair price, and quality service. Breaches of these principles are often associated with unfair practices such as predatory pricing and abusive monopoly behaviour or monopoly power.”
A dynamic, balanced free trade environment was the aim of today’s Fair Trade Commission meeting.