Busi­ness process out­sourc­ing (BPO) op­er­a­tor Carenet Health, which ex­pand­ed to T&T shores four months ago, has re­ceived ap­proval for its ap­pli­ca­tion for a li­cence to op­er­ate in T&T’s Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones (SEZ) .

 In a news re­lease, the T&T Trade & In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency (TT­TI­PA) said Carenet, which is head­quar­tered in Texas, has been ap­proved as a Sin­gle Zone En­ter­prise as it will op­er­ate as an en­ti­ty with­in a leased com­mer­cial space in Port-of-Spain.

“Its ex­ec­u­tives se­lect­ed this coun­try pri­mar­i­ly be­cause of T&T’s high­ly skilled tal­ent, Eng­lish flu­en­cy and time zone align­ment to the US. Their ini­tial lo­ca­tion will staff over 200 health ad­vi­sors in Port-of-Spain and they al­ready have eyes on oth­er lo­ca­tions in Trinidad for fu­ture ex­pan­sion,” said TT­TI­PA.

 “We are ho­n­oured to be the first to re­ceive ap­proval by the Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone Act (SEZ) and to pave the way for the fu­ture growth of both Carenet Health and T&T. We ap­pre­ci­ate the SEZ regime and their sup­port in nav­i­gat­ing the process. Carenet looks for­ward to our health­care growth in Trinidad and To­ba­go in sup­port of our 500+ pre­mier clients,” said Christo­pher Rogers, chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer of Carenet Health.

Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon not­ed, “The Gov­ern­ment wel­comes Carenet to our shores, the first to be ap­proved in an al­ready sig­nif­i­cant pipeline of in­vestors. The SEZ Au­thor­i­ty (SEZA)is al­so to be com­mend­ed for en­sur­ing that the ap­proval was done in keep­ing with the set time­lines laid out in the leg­is­lat­ed reg­u­la­tions. We look for­ward to the con­tin­ued ben­e­fits to our coun­try; our pri­or­i­ty be­ing job cre­ation.”

The TT­TI­PA high­light­ed that the coun­try’s SEZ regime, which was ful­ly pro­claimed in Ju­ly, is ex­pect­ed to boost lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur­ship and at­tract for­eign in­vest­ment, as the in­cen­tives are tar­get­ed at new in­vest­ment projects.  

“The in­cen­tives in­clude a 15 per cent cor­po­ra­tion tax, a gen­er­ous port­fo­lio of con­ces­sions and ex­emp­tions on im­port du­ties and VAT, as well as oth­er tax­es such as prop­er­ty tax and stamp du­ty.”

This in­vest­ment in BPO (Busi­ness Process Out­sourc­ing) was fa­cil­i­tat­ed over a pe­ri­od of 10 months by In­vesTT, which is now part of the re­cent­ly es­tab­lished Trinidad and To­ba­go Trade and In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency. The agency out­lined that it played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the growth of this coun­try’s BPO sec­tor, from the se­cur­ing of the first for­eign BPO in­vest­ment in 2015 to the es­tab­lish­ment of nine com­pa­nies to­day and the cre­ation of 2,500 jobs.  

The sec­tor is set for fur­ther growth this fis­cal year as ex­ist­ing BPOs have ex­pan­sion plans that are pro­ject­ed to dou­ble the cur­rent em­ploy­ment fig­ure,” the re­lease added.

The SEZ Act, 2022, was ful­ly pro­claimed on Ju­ly 5, 2024. The Act was par­tial­ly pro­claimed on Jan­u­ary 31, 2022, to al­low for the es­tab­lish­ment of the T&T SEZA; the ap­point­ment of a board for the au­thor­i­ty; and the staffing and set­ting up of the SEZA.

The full procla­ma­tion of the SEZ Act re­peals the Free Zones Act, brings in­to ef­fect the SEZ Reg­u­la­tions, 2023, and al­lows any pub­lic, pri­vate or pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship to ap­ply to the SEZA for spe­cif­ic li­cences in which to func­tion in the new regime.