An­na-Lisa Paul

The one cent coin is to be elim­i­nat­ed from T&T's na­tion­al cur­ren­cy de­nom­i­na­tions, while the met­al com­po­si­tion of the five, ten and 25 cent coins will be al­tered.

The move, which was an­nounced on the Cen­tral Bank's web­site over the week­end, is ex­pect­ed save Gov­ern­ment an es­ti­mat­ed $15 mil­lion in mint­ing costs year­ly. The changes will take place over the next few months.

The Cen­tral Bank said: "A sin­gle one cent coin cur­rent­ly costs 21 cents to mint and each year the Bank mints on av­er­age 45 mil­lion one cent coin pieces."

This sav­ings was cal­cu­lat­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $9,450,000.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the new met­al com­po­si­tion of the five, ten and 25 cent coins will con­tain a 90 per cent steel core and less than ten per cent nick­el and cop­per over­lay. The Cen­tral Bank said the new coins will look and feel the same as cur­rent coins.

More in­for­ma­tion will be giv­en over the next few months about where coins can be re­deemed, do­na­tion dri­ves and pub­li­ca­tion of the cash price round­ing rules.

The Cen­tral Bank has the ex­clu­sive right to is­sue and re­deem cur­ren­cy notes and coins in T&T. With the ap­proval of the Min­istry of Fi­nance, the bank makes de­ci­sions on the de­nom­i­na­tion, sub­strate and char­ac­ter­is­tics of lo­cal notes and coins.

In the past, the bank has is­sued lim­it­ed amounts of one dol­lar coins to mark spe­cial events such as the Unit­ed Na­tions Food For All cam­paign in 1979, as well as com­mem­o­ra­tive coins in cel­e­bra­tion of spe­cial events and oc­ca­sions of na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance.