The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AM­CHAM T&T) says that it is some­what wor­ried that the rev­enue fig­ure an­nounced by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert for the bud­get may be "over­ly am­bi­tious."

Dur­ing yes­ter­day's bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion Im­bert said that "to­tal rev­enue has been bud­get­ed at $41.364 bil­lion, up from $34.059 bil­lion or $7.304 bil­lion from the es­ti­mat­ed re­vised out­turn in 2020."

"While we are op­ti­mistic about what we heard in the bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, AM­CHAM T&T is con­cerned about the Min­is­ter’s rev­enue pro­jec­tions giv­en that we on­ly man­aged to raise $32.5 bil­lion in fis­cal 2020 and we are still be­ing af­fect­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic," it stat­ed in a re­lease last night in re­sponse to Im­bert's pre­sen­ta­tion.

"Ad­mit­ted­ly, with­out ac­cess to all of the in­for­ma­tion that the Min­is­ter used to cal­cu­late his rev­enue pro­jec­tion, we are some­what wor­ried that this tar­get is over­ly am­bi­tious and may force the gov­ern­ment to un­der­take fur­ther bor­row­ing or mid-year cuts that could un­der­mine the at­tempts at mod­erni­sa­tion," it stat­ed.

AM­CHAM T&T said over­all, it is op­ti­mistic that the bud­get state­ment out­lines some ini­tia­tives that could set the plat­form for fu­ture growth.

"We ap­plaud the gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to­wards their com­mit­ment to dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of the econ­o­my. The spe­cif­ic com­mit­ment to an e-pay­ment gate­way for gov­ern­ment ser­vices, na­tion­al e-iden­ti­ty and unique na­tion­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber and the use of vir­tu­al courts can all be trans­for­ma­tive for both in­di­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es in all sec­tors," AM­CHAM T&T stat­ed.

"We trust that the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion will give spe­cif­ic time­lines for im­ple­men­ta­tion, in­clu­sive of ap­pro­pri­ate and mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion with stake­hold­ers," it stat­ed.

AM­CHAM T&T stat­ed that the gov­ern­ment's com­mit­ment to tack­le spe­cif­ic im­ped­i­ments to the ease of do­ing busi­ness such as the time tak­en to get per­mits, mod­ern­iza­tion of the Port of Port of Spain and lib­er­al­iza­tion of the fu­el mar­ket, are all wel­come if they are done in an or­der­ly and trans­par­ent man­ner.

"The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance al­so high­light­ed sev­er­al pieces of crit­i­cal leg­is­la­tion that are high on the Gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive agen­da. AM­CHAM T&T has long called for more bi-par­ti­san­ship around the pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion and we are keen to see both par­ties in the Par­lia­ment work to­geth­er to pass leg­is­la­tion en­abling more ef­fi­cient tax col­lec­tion, the full op­er­a­tional­iza­tion of the pub­lic pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion and over­all im­prove­ment in the ease of do­ing busi­ness," it stat­ed.

"Some might ar­gue that the mea­sures do not do enough to raise rev­enue in this fis­cal pe­ri­od. That may be so, but if the mea­sures out­lined are im­ple­ment­ed, there is like­ly to be a boost of con­fi­dence that will stim­u­late pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment in the years to come. Such in­vest­ments will gen­er­ate jobs and cre­ate ad­di­tion­al rev­enue for the coun­try," it stat­ed.