Sissons leads growing market in Trinidad: facing stiff competition from international paint companies, Sissons focuses on quality. (International Coating Scene).

Sissons Paints Ltd. is both the oldest and leading paint and coatings manufacturer in Trinidad & Tobago, with an estimated 30% market share of the country's two-million-gallon-per-year market, said Jesus Rodriguez, the general manager of the company, based in Chaguanas, Trinidad.

"While the architectural lines are the leading volume segment in Trinidad, this is the only country among the Caricom countries which has a growing industrial segment, primarily based on the oil and gas industries," Mr. Rodriguez added. (Caricom is the Caribbean Community, a free-trade bloc comprised of the 15 English-speaking nations of the Caribbean, including Guyana in South America.)

Sissons manufactures paints and coatings both in Trinidad and in Grenada, and the company distributes to Dominica, Guyana, Montserrat, St. Kitts, St. Lucia and St. Vincent. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Venezuela's Corimon, Sissons also exports to Margarita Island in Venezuela.

"We are a unit of Corimon, but we operate with a certain autonomy as a profit center," said Mr. Rodriguez. Sissons utilizes the technology and technical support of Corimon, but is also free to acquire technology from anywhere else in the world, he noted. Sissons faces stiff competition in Trinidad from international companies including Benjamin Moore, Berger Paints and Penta Paints, among others. Prior to becoming a subsidiary of Corimon, Sissons, which has been in business since 1958, was owned by the Donald McPherson Group of England.

Since Trinidad is the only Caribbean nation with substantial oil and natural gas reserves, the gross domestic product (GDP) is stronger than other countries in the region. With a projected GDP growth rate of four percent this year, Trinidad leads Jamaica--another major economy in the region, with GDP growth of only about 2.5%, Mr. Rodriguez said. "We are expecting GDP growth of five percent or more next year," he noted. As a rule, paint sales in Trinidad increase as a function of GDP growth, as in other Latin American countries. "We are seeing an increase both in purchasing power and in per-capita consumption," he said.

High Quality Products

Part of Sissons' strategy to maintain market leadership is a focus on quality, which the company supports through a determined research and development division. "We were the first manufacturer in the Caribbean to produce products like Chinese lacquer, exterior emulsion, non-drip ceiling white and polyurethane varnish," Mr. Rodriguez said. Leading product lines include Sisco Lac, Weather Guard, Ceiling White, Super Matt and Super Gloss architectural paints.

Within the one-third market share Sissons has in Trinidad, sales are concentrated in higher-quality and higher-priced products associated with the corporate slogan, "Good Looks That Last!" Among other trends in formulation preferences in Trinidad is the move toward more water-based paints and coatings, both in the architectural and in the industrial segments, according to Mr. Rodriguez.

Sissons owns a chain of eight color centers that operate in Trinidad under the brand Infinity Colour Shops. The shops sell paint and coatings products in addition to several lines of paint brushes that the company manufactures in Trinidad. The Infinity Colour Shop chain also extends to Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia and St. Vincents, Mr. Rodriguez said. "Tinting and dispensing for us is a vital aspect of the enterprise; we were the first company to establish this concept in Trinidad and on some other islands," he said.

CHARLES W. THURSTON

LATIN AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT