New­ly-ap­point­ed Unit­ed States Am­bas­sador to T&T Joseph Mon­del­lo agrees that this coun­try needs in­vest­ment. How­ev­er, he point­ed out that what in­vestors want more than any­thing else—es­pe­cial­ly when look­ing for new mar­kets—are trans­paren­cy, sta­bil­i­ty, and pre­dictabil­i­ty.

“There are many things we can do to­geth­er in these ar­eas to im­prove Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment. Al­ready, the Unit­ed States is a strong part­ner in the fight to re­duce wide­spread crime and im­prove sta­bil­i­ty,” he said.

”In the last five years alone, the Unit­ed States has in­vest­ed near­ly US $10 mil­lion to build law en­force­ment and ju­di­cial ca­pac­i­ty.

“In ad­di­tion, we sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s work on new pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion and we look for­ward to its prompt im­ple­men­ta­tion. Trans­paren­cy in pub­lic pro­cure­ment will fos­ter good faith in the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­qui­si­tion de­ci­sions,”

Mon­del­lo spoke yes­ter­day at his first pub­lic event since ar­riv­ing in the coun­try, which was Am­Cham TT’s 22nd HSSE Con­fer­ence and Ex­hi­bi­tion at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain.

Not­ing that the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Am­Cham and the US Em­bassy is strong, Mon­del­lo said,: “Since my nom­i­na­tion, I have spo­ken with many peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go Quite a few tell me that what the coun­try needs from the Unit­ed States, more than any­thing else, is in­vest­ment—and I com­plete­ly agree.

“Un­like oth­er coun­tries, the Unit­ed States does not have state-owned en­ter­pris­es that I can di­rect to in­vest in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and that’s a good thing: For one, firms owned and backed by gov­ern­ments are in­com­pat­i­ble to free mar­kets.

“As we have seen time af­ter time through­out the world, state-owned en­ter­pris­es in­vest abroad in ways that are clear­ly not trans­par­ent, clear­ly not mar­ket-dri­ven, and clear­ly not de­signed to ben­e­fit the peo­ple of the coun­tries in which they in­vest.”

He not­ed that whether in the Unit­ed States or in oth­er coun­tries, the pri­vate en­ter­prise that fu­el Amer­i­can in­vest­ment is bound by high eth­i­cal and ac­count­abil­i­ty stan­dards. How­ev­er,

Amer­i­can firms are con­stant­ly look­ing for new in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“Their de­ci­sions are lim­it­ed on­ly by rea­son­able pro­jec­tions of re­ward giv­en the bal­ance of risk. Al­though we as a Gov­ern­ment can­not di­rect in­vest­ment your way, what the Unit­ed States can do is part­ner with the Gov­ern­ment and civ­il so­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go to im­prove the in­vest­ment cli­mate.

“Things like cor­rup­tion, lack of trans­paren­cy, and need­less bu­reau­cra­cy are all fac­tors that can make po­ten­tial in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties un­at­trac­tive, which sti­fles eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment,” Mon­del­lo em­pha­sised.

He said there are oth­er be­hav­iours that con­tribute to a cli­mate that’s at­trac­tive to in­vest­ment, in­clud­ing main­tain­ing a cul­ture of safe­ty, har­ness­ing the pow­er of tech­nol­o­gy, im­prov­ing cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty and ad­e­quate­ly plan­ning to mit­i­gate the im­pact of en­vi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters.

“Progress on these is­sues in the weeks, months, and years ahead will un­doubt­ed­ly ben­e­fit Trinidad and To­ba­go and help make the coun­try a place in which more Amer­i­can firms will want to in­vest,” he added.