The Em­ploy­ers' Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ECA) said yes­ter­day that while the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency would cause sub­stan­tial dis­rup­tion to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, the time has come for de­ci­sive ac­tion tar­get­ed to ar­eas in­formed by the sta­tis­tics for im­me­di­ate ac­tion and at­ten­tion. "While such a procla­ma­tion has now be­come nec­es­sary, it has come at a time when our abil­i­ty to com­pete in the mar­kets in which we op­er­ate is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly chal­leng­ing," said ECA pres­i­dent, Ke­ston Nan­coo.

"The Glob­al Com­pet­i­tive In­dex re­port ranked T&T 84 out of 139 coun­tries sur­veyed, where the most prob­lem­at­ic fac­tors for do­ing busi­ness in T&T were crime, theft and poor work eth­ic in the na­tion­al labour force. "More­over, as a re­sult of this ac­tion by the Gov­ern­ment, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty has been forced to re-ad­just their nor­mal op­er­a­tions in or­der to com­ply with the reg­u­la­tions set out in a state of emer­gency," he stat­ed.