T&T can con­tin­ue to boast of be­ing the most cost ef­fec­tive in­vest­ment des­ti­na­tion in the Caribbean and Cen­tral Amer­i­can re­gion.

This is ac­cord­ing to the Caribbean and Cen­tral Amer­i­can Coun­tries of the Fu­ture 2015/16 re­port, pub­lished by The Fi­nan­cial Times' fDI In­tel­li­gence unit. T&T was al­so ranked as the coun­try with the sec­ond best For­eign Di­rect In­vest­ment (FDI) strat­e­gy.

The study placed T&T with­in the top ten coun­tries with the most busi­ness friend­ly en­vi­ron­ment and best con­nec­tiv­i­ty. The coun­try award was pre­sent­ed on Sep­tem­ber 10 at the Caribbean and Cen­tral Amer­i­can Coun­tries of the Fu­ture Awards Cer­e­mo­ny held dur­ing the Caribbean In­vest­ment Sum­mit in Lon­don. T&T's Act­ing High Com­mis­sion­er to Lon­don, Ted­win Her­bert, was on hand to re­ceive the award on both the coun­try and the IPA's be­half.

The study, which is con­duct­ed every two years, analysed da­ta from a to­tal of 29 lo­ca­tions. T&T has been the most Cost Ef­fec­tive coun­try in the re­gion since 2013. Cost ef­fec­tive­ness is cal­cu­lat­ed based on the coun­try's per­for­mance on the da­ta points of cost of es­tab­lish­ing a busi­ness; cost of reg­is­ter­ing a prop­er­ty; cost of con­struc­tion per­mits; cost to ex­port; cost to im­port; cor­po­ra­tion tax rate and to­tal tax rate.

"It comes as no sur­prise that we are once again con­firmed as the most cost ef­fec­tive lo­ca­tion. Trinidad and To­ba­go pro­vides an ex­cel­lent val­ue for in­vest­ment and rein­vest­ment," says In­vesTT's pres­i­dent Rac­quel Moses.

"Stud­ies like this one help to high­light Trinidad and To­ba­go as a com­pet­i­tive in­vest­ment des­ti­na­tion. In­vesTT has seen first­hand the ben­e­fits of these rank­ings with­in the last year with ma­jor in­vest­ments closed in ICT, Mar­itime and Agribusi­ness. T&T was al­so one of on­ly three Eng­lish speak­ing coun­tries to be list­ed as one of the Coun­tries of the Fu­ture. This is a clear in­di­ca­tion that in­vestors look­ing for re­turns should con­sid­er Trinidad and To­ba­go first."

This coun­try award adds cre­dence to the IPA's grow­ing list of in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised achieve­ments. Amongst them are Best To In­vest Top Agen­cies Award re­ceived in May 2015 from Site Se­lec­tion Mag­a­zine; UNC­TAD's 2014 In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion award for Ex­cel­lence & Pro­mot­ing FDI for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment and be­ing ranked with­in the top 20 per cent of IPAs in the World Bank's Glob­al In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Bench­mark Re­port 2013. Cur­rent­ly, Trinidad and To­ba­go is ranked by the World Bank among the top 10 im­provers in the world with the most re­forms, mak­ing it eas­i­er to do busi­ness.

fDI In­tel­li­gence is a di­vi­sion of the Fi­nan­cial Times and man­ages on­line spe­cial­ists tools fDi Mar­kets and fDi Bench­marks. The or­gan­i­sa­tion is not­ed amongst the most rep­utable in­ter­na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties in for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment and is a ma­jor source of in­tel­li­gence in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for IPA's and in­vestors alike.