PRESS RELEASE – FORTY people from private and public sector agencies took the first step towards ITC Trade Analyst certification last Monday.
The opportunity was made possible with their participation in a six-week eCourse on Market Analysis and Research, which is a joint initiative of the Saint Lucia Trade Export Promotion Agency (TEPA) and the International Trade Centre (ITC).
The purpose of the eCourse, which was developed by ITC’s Trade and Market Intelligence section (TMI), is to comprehensively equip beneficiaries to assess the perceived export opportunities of their country
According to TEPA Director, Jacqueline Emmanuel-Flood, building capacity among both trade facilitation agencies of government and market producers ensures that the country is more prompt to grasp opportunities arising in any sector and circumstance. This, she said, is the rationale for investing in this area of training, and is the general objective of this eCourse.
“For a country to achieve dynamic economic development, it is imperative to (have) widespread knowledge and analytical capacity among local trade and investment support institutions, private entrepreneurs and other trade-related policymakers,” she indicated.
The CEO said that with the strong focus that has been maintained on strengthening Saint Lucia’s private sector to be able to adapt to doing business in the global market, understanding international demand, making export-informed decisions, and being hands-on with all necessary aspects for a successful export strategy, is not a simple task.
“The decision to export to a new market involves doing market research on opportunities. The process can be expensive and time-consuming; this is especially so for small and medium enterprises (SMEs),” Flood said
The eCourse, which runs from May 22 to June 30, is being administered online by the ITC in Geneva with aid from TEPA technical officers. The course will be interactive with live webinars and also video tutorials, and is structured to enable participants the flexibility to follow them according to their own time schedule.
This will be supported by periodic assessments to determine participants’ grasp of concepts and information. To qualify for the certificate, participants are required to successfully outline a case study.
The eCourse is another work plan implementation milestone of National Export Strategy (NES). It follows a number of similarly focused interventions by TEPA to the trade sector, with leadership and facilitation by the ITC.