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The National Export Council (NEC) has refuted claims by the PRO of the Dominica Manufacturers Association (DMA), that the association was excluded from an NEC-organized\u00a0 trade and cultural exposition held in Guadeloupe recently.<\/p>\nThe National Export Council (NEC) has refuted claims by the PRO of the Dominica Manufacturers Association (DMA), that the association was excluded from an NEC-organized\u00a0 trade and cultural exposition held in Guadeloupe recently.<\/p>\n
The event, dubbed Semaine de La Dominique \u00a0or Dominica Week, was held in the commune of Le Lamentin from the 3rd to the 7th of December.<\/p>\n
Speaking on DBS Radio, Public Relations Officer of the DMA, Severin Mc Kenzie, said he was disappointed that his organization was excluded from such an event and he hopes that it was an oversight.<\/p>\n
However, NEC Chairman, McCarthy Marie, has described \u00a0Mckenzie’s statement as “completely and totally false.” He told DNO that the NEC sent invitations for the Guadeloupe event to the president of the manufacturer’s association in three different emails, “and we have no idea what is their arrangement internally for communication among their members, so if he (Mckenzie), wasn’t aware, it’s not because we didn’t send it to the association; it’s because there was a problem within (DMA) about internal communication,” Marie stated.<\/p>\n
Executive Assistant at the National Export Council Secretariat (NECS), Hilda Kelshall, provided DNO with details of the content and dates of the emails sent by the NEC to the DMA. \u00a0“On August 16th correspondence was sent to Mr. Guthrie, DMA’s president and other stakeholders via email and attached to that email was a concept paper on the trade and cultural exposition which was going to be held in Guadeloupe.We invited him to a meeting on August 22nd which was later postponed to August 28th,” she explained.<\/p>\n
According to Kelshall, Guthrie did not attend that meeting nor did he provide any comments on the concept paper. She said on September 12, the NECS also sent another email to the president of the DMA informing him of the postponement of the trade and cultural exposition from the initial dates of 15th to 19th October, to December 3rd to 7th.<\/p>\n
“Again in November, November the 8th, the DMA president was invited to another meeting to finalize details as related to the trade and cultural exposition.I can say here that although there were members of DMA present at that meeting, Mr. Guthrie was not present at that meeting.”<\/p>\n
Kelshall said several Dominica companies which met the criteria for participation, attended the Dominica Week event in Guadeloupe. “We had Bello, Benjo…Benjo Seamoss, Caribbean Agro-producers Ltd and Dominica Essential Oils and these are members of DMA.”<\/p>\n
She said it was ” rather unfortunate” that Mckenzie would make such a public statement “without the facts”.<\/p>\n
” We hope that this will clear the air on the matter as we seek to work with all manufacturers in our move towards increasing exports”, the NECS official stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The National Export Council (NEC) has refuted claims by the PRO of the Dominica Manufacturers Association (DMA), that the association was excluded from an NEC-organized\u00a0 trade and cultural exposition held in Guadeloupe recently. The event, dubbed Semaine de La Dominique…","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":81821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy-development","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n