A US$20 mil­lion loan from the In­ter Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) will help de­vel­op T&T as an ICT hub in the re­gion, said Dr Bhoe Tewarie, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment."We have signed an agree­ment with the IDB for loan sup­port to de­vel­op a glob­al ser­vices plat­form in T&T. The idea is that T&T will be a hub in the world for glob­al pro­vi­sion for in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy-en­abled ser­vices (ITeS), which will mean in­creased in­vest­ments, in­creased ex­ports and em­ploy­ment in the sec­tor," he said.

Tewarie was speak­ing yes­ter­day at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Min­istry of Plan­ning, Er­ic Williams Fi­nan­cial Com­plex, Port-of-Spain.He said the IDB fa­cil­i­tat­ed a meet­ing be­tween the Min­istry of Plan­ning and Zon­aAmer­i­ca, the largest and most suc­cess­ful ex­port ser­vices hub in Uruguay and in Latin Amer­i­ca.Be­fore the me­dia brief­ing, they held a meet­ing at the Min­istry of Plan­ning and there are plans to meet with the lo­cal pri­vate sec­tor and look at ar­eas in the coun­try where it can be set up.

Tewarie said this hub has the ca­pac­i­ty to pro­vide "thou­sands of jobs.""The di­rect ben­e­fi­cia­ries of such a thrust are stu­dents and grad­u­ates, the un­em­ployed and the un­der­em­ployed who will re­ceive train­ing in the ser­vices in­ter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion hub that will be set up," he said.Some of the ar­eas Zon­aAmer­i­ca and the Min­istry of Plan­ning will ex­plore for this hub in­clude le­gal process out­sourc­ing, fi­nan­cial and ac­count­ing out­sourc­ing, in­for­ma­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy out­sourc­ing and con­tract cen­tre out­sourc­ing.

Tewarie said T&T had the ba­sic in­fra­struc­ture to sup­port such a high-end tech­nol­o­gy hub."We are well pre­pared with hu­man cap­i­tal and the flow of uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ates is steady. We are ranked 71 out of 148 coun­tries in the Net­worked Readi­ness In­dex 2014 and of the World Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum, we are ranked 37 out of 138 coun­tries for the qual­i­ty of our ed­u­ca­tion," he said.

"Our main prob­lem was al­ways how we di­ver­si­fy away from en­er­gy which is so strong in our econ­o­my. So we want in­dus­tries for our pop­u­la­tion that pro­vide good, qual­i­ty jobs and bet­ter pay­ing jobs."