The new year is here and the busi­ness groups are hop­ing that greater crime pre­ven­tion is put in place, more sup­port for Small and Medi­um Sized En­ter­pris­es (SMEs), and ease of do­ing busi­ness, es­pe­cial­ly with the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion.

The Busi­ness Guardian reached out to sev­er­al busi­ness groups to get their per­spec­tive on the out­look for 2024.

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce in re­sponse said it has long ad­vo­cat­ed for sev­er­al is­sues, but the pri­or­i­ty must be on the ease of con­duct­ing busi­ness in the coun­try, not on­ly fi­nan­cial­ly but al­so in­fra­struc­tural­ly and in­sti­tu­tion­al­ly.  

The Cham­ber not­ed it is look­ing for­ward to work­ing more close­ly with the Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (Ned­co) and oth­ers to ad­dress these is­sues and fur­ther de­vel­op vi­able op­tions for the econ­o­my. There is a need to im­ple­ment in­cen­tives for new en­tre­pre­neurs such as the cre­ation of a pri­vate eq­ui­ty fund, said the busi­ness group.  

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Cham­ber said it has ad­vo­cat­ed on many oc­ca­sions that there is a need to di­ver­si­fy away from the en­er­gy econ­o­my. The im­por­tance of di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion is ev­i­dent in the T&T Cham­ber’s for­ma­tion of com­mit­tees for food se­cu­ri­ty and agri­cul­ture as well as the or­ange econ­o­my.

“Both of these are meant to lead the coun­try in­to oth­er pos­si­ble sec­tors which would re­duce the use of for­eign ex­change and in­stead, earn it. We would like the coun­try to put more re­sources in­to these ar­eas to bol­ster and build more re­silience in­to the econ­o­my,” the Cham­ber out­lined.

As it per­tains to crime af­fect­ing busi­ness­es, the T&T Cham­ber said crime im­pacts heav­i­ly on the re­tail sec­tor, as well as in­creas­es the cost of do­ing busi­ness in terms of se­cu­ri­ty and pro­tec­tive sys­tems, which will be passed on to the con­sumer.  

It not­ed that the or­gan­i­sa­tion met with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice where its ideas were shared and it be­lieves those ideas could help al­le­vi­ate the cur­rent spate of crime, recog­nis­ing the mul­ti-faceted ap­proach which will be need­ed.  

“We al­so host­ed a closed-door ses­sion with mem­bers of sev­er­al civ­il so­ci­ety en­ti­ties and pri­vate sec­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tives to gain in­sights on youth and crime, to bet­ter un­der­stand how the pri­vate sec­tor can con­tribute and sup­port pro­grammes, as well as what can be done more ef­fec­tive­ly,”

On the is­sue of VAT re­funds, the Cham­ber said while the Gov­ern­ment has made some progress on this is­sue, it is hoped that very short­ly VAT re­funds will be made in a more time­ly man­ner, in ac­cor­dance with the VAT Act as re­funds are sup­posed to be pro­vid­ed with­in 30 days and not ex­ceed­ing the max­i­mum time of six months.  

“We did have a dis­cus­sion with the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance on this and we are hope­ful that there will be a change from next year,” the cham­ber added.

Forex avail­abil­i­ty still an is­sue

Am­cham T&T, in ex­press­ing its view, said there needs to be more en­gage­ment and col­lab­o­ra­tion and a clear­er de­vel­op­ment plan ar­tic­u­lat­ed with both the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of met­rics and re­port­ing on them.

Asked if the cham­ber be­lieves the ease of do­ing busi­ness is get­ting bet­ter, the busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tion said it will have a bet­ter pulse of what mem­bers are say­ing when its an­nu­al busi­ness con­fi­dence sur­vey with Ernst and Young is con­clud­ed in two weeks.  

“How­ev­er, crime, ac­cess to hard cur­ren­cy, dif­fi­cul­ties with clear­ance of goods, and glob­al eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty re­main ma­jor chal­lenges.”

Head of the Cou­va-Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce, Mukesh Ram­s­ingh in­di­cat­ed that the cham­ber wants to see im­proved pro­cess­ing time from the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, greater em­pha­sis on crime pre­ven­tion, more po­lice pa­trols, and ac­cess to fund­ing for small busi­ness­es.

As it re­lates to the for­eign ex­change chal­lenge, Ram­s­ingh high­light­ed that more ac­cess should be giv­en to small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es since their growth is be­ing sti­fled.

Asked how sales were for the Christ­mas sea­son in the Cou­va-Point Lisas dis­trict, Ram­s­ingh said sales were slow­er than ex­pect­ed, as peo­ple are very cau­tious of how they spent as the is­sue of prop­er­ty tax­es and in­creas­es in oth­er ar­eas seems to be weigh­ing heav­i­ly on cus­tomers.

Al­so ex­press­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments was the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Cham­bers (CRC), which said sales for the Christ­mas sea­son was very dis­ap­point­ing for cer­tain sec­tors of re­tail.

“It is less than 2022, which is dis­turb­ing, be­cause the an­tic­i­pa­tion was that 2023 was go­ing to be a bet­ter year. and we were on the way to re­cov­ery.

“Af­ter the COVID pe­ri­od, and the re­open­ing of the econ­o­my, those busi­ness­es that were locked down and deemed not es­sen­tial are find­ing it dif­fi­cult to re­cov­er with­in the cur­rent econ­o­my, and the dis­pos­able in­come of the con­sumers has al­so been stretched due to ad­di­tion­al pres­sures, food in­fla­tion and in­creas­es to their liv­ing and fixed ex­pens­es,” the cham­bers stressed.

Ques­tioned on what some of the out­stand­ing po­lices the CRC would like to see ad­dressed for the new year, it said Cus­toms and Ex­cise re­form, im­prove­ment in the coun­try’s in­fra­struc­ture, in­creased and reg­u­lar joint po­lice/army pa­trols, and amend­ing the Firearms Act to make firearms users’ li­cences (FUL’s) eas­i­er to ac­cess by busi­ness own­ers.

On the for­eign ex­change is­sue, the cham­bers said the good news is the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance is aware of the chal­lenges and is in the process of de­vis­ing a mech­a­nism to ad­dress this, so the CRC awaits how it is go­ing to be im­ple­ment­ed.

The Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio, ex­pressed con­cern about the fi­nan­cial cri­sis be­ing faced by NIB, and in this re­gard, the cham­ber wish­es to see the im­ple­men­ta­tion of in­creas­ing the re­tire­ment age; more­over, the in­for­mal sec­tor needs to be ad­dressed in its con­tri­bu­tion to re­tire­ment.

Gre­go­rio al­so said there needs to be more trans­paren­cy in the grant­i­ng of FULs to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and the cit­i­zen­ry as a whole.  

“We are go­ing to call on an an­swer for the thou­sands of ap­pli­ca­tions that have been made in this re­gard. If one does not qual­i­fy, tell us so and tell us why. But we ex­pect FULs to be grant­ed where they are nec­es­sary. We can­not con­tin­ue wait­ing with bat­ed breath and sus­pense, it is un­ac­cept­able,” he lament­ed.

Smug­gling of goods a prob­lem

And, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) said its plan for 2024 is to part­ner with the gov­ern­ment to cre­ate the en­abling en­vi­ron­ment for non-en­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ing to pros­per and grow, ad­vo­cat­ing to re­move bot­tle­necks and im­prove the ease of do­ing busi­ness in the coun­try.  

“Part of our plan is to cre­ate mar­ket op­por­tu­ni­ties for our mem­bers, in­ter­nal­ly and ex­ter­nal­ly. In this re­gard, we would fur­ther our work to ex­pose our mem­bers to the ex­ter­nal mar­ket via our ex­pand­ed trade mis­sion agen­da for 2024 as well as through our TIC show, sched­uled for Ju­ly 11-13 at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence; we an­tic­i­pate through this event, we will bring a pletho­ra of rel­e­vant buy­ers to our mem­bers.”

The TTMA not­ed that it will em­bark on six trade mis­sions this year to strength­en the Cari­com and Caribbean mar­kets, and al­so look for new and larg­er mar­kets for its man­u­fac­tur­ers.

Asked what has been achieved in the six trade mis­sions held last year, the TTMA said be­tween 20 to 30 com­pa­nies per mis­sion, the com­pa­nies would have signed dis­tri­b­u­tion agree­ments, co–pack­ag­ing con­tracts and al­so in­vest­ment agree­ments.  

“The suc­cess of the mis­sions was al­so de­fined by the heavy vol­ume of con­tain­ers (20 ft and 40 ft) go­ing in­to these coun­tries in the af­ter­math of the mis­sions and the con­tin­u­a­tion of these ship­ments (an av­er­age of 10-15 per mis­sion). Com­pa­nies would have re­port­ed sales rang­ing from US$20,000 to US$100,000 (per con­tain­er) gen­er­at­ed from these mis­sions and have in­di­cat­ed that these mar­kets will be im­por­tant for the com­pa­ny’s growth,” the TTMA dis­closed.

Con­cern­ing the on­go­ing il­lic­it trade, it said mil­lions of dol­lars are lost due to smug­gling and tax eva­sion every year, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pacts the op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ty and prof­itabil­i­ty of le­gal traders.  

“From a macro-lev­el, this type of crime would con­tin­ue to per­pet­u­ate if not tack­led from a mul­ti-stake­hold­er ap­proach,” said the man­u­fac­tur­ers’ body.

The As­so­ci­a­tion said it al­so in­tends to main­tain its po­si­tion on the An­ti-Il­lic­it Trade Task Force which pro­vides an av­enue for its mem­bers to have in­put on rel­e­vant leg­is­la­tion, poli­cies and plans to com­bat il­lic­it trade at a na­tion­al lev­el. This year it al­so has plans to join re­gion­al dis­cus­sions on the is­sue of il­lic­it trade and part­ner with agen­cies through­out the Caribbean di­as­po­ra to strength­en ef­forts and out­reach, said the TTMA.