One of the coun­try’s busi­ness lead­ers is call­ing on own­ers of re­tail busi­ness­es to di­ver­si­fy their firms and in­clude oth­er arms such as man­u­fac­tur­ing and agro pro­cess­ing for ex­port to be­come net earn­ers of for­eign ex­change.

The sug­ges­tion came from chair­man of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC), Vivek Char­ran, as busi­ness lead­ers across the coun­try gave the Busi­ness Guardian their wish list for the 2024 mid-year bud­get re­view.

“This will be a game chang­er and will make our pri­vate sec­tor much more com­pet­i­tive,” Char­ran said, re­fer­ring to his call on re­tail busi­ness­es to di­ver­si­fy.

Char­ran said this kind of ac­tiv­i­ty bears re­sem­blance to that of the Mit­tel­stand mod­el that ex­ists in Ger­many.

The term Mit­tel­stand main­ly ap­plies to mid-sized firms as op­posed to larg­er list­ed com­pa­nies and, more im­por­tant­ly, they are char­ac­terised by a com­mon set of val­ues and man­age­ment prac­tices.

More­over, they are de­fined as com­pa­nies that are owned by one or more fam­i­lies, with a dif­fer­ence be­ing drawn be­tween “fam­i­ly-con­trolled” and “fam­i­ly-led” busi­ness­es.

Re­it­er­at­ing that small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) are still strug­gling to ac­cess forex, Char­ran said busi­ness own­ers are still us­ing their cred­it cards to pay over­seas sup­pli­ers.

“This is the kind of prac­tice in ob­tain­ing a mi­nus­cule amount of forex for the pur­pose of busi­ness con­tin­u­a­tion. It is the role of Gov­ern­ment to de­vise a more ef­fi­cient method­ol­o­gy for busi­ness­es, par­tic­u­lar the SME sec­tor, to ob­tain the bad­ly need­ed forex. This is an ur­gent mat­ter to ad­dress,” Char­ran said.

On the en­er­gy front, Char­ran not­ed that work is un­der­way to de­vel­op the in­fra­struc­ture to ex­tract much need gas from the Man­a­tee field, which is a de­vel­op­ment he said should bring re­lief to the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and to our econ­o­my as well.

Oth­er busi­ness lead­ers al­so called for the re­open­ing of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, ad­dress­ing the forex short­age, im­ple­ment­ing re­new­able en­er­gy projects, putting in place more agri­cul­tur­al in­cen­tives and deal­ing with un­em­ploy­ment are among the is­sues the var­i­ous cham­bers want Gov­ern­ment to look at in its up­com­ing mid-year bud­get re­view.

Daphne Bartlett, pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion, told the Busi­ness Guardian the re­open­ing of the re­fin­ery would pro­vide much need­ed jobs, de­scrib­ing it as the “eco­nom­ic cen­tre­piece” of south Trinidad.

“Many ac­tors with­in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty (con­trac­tors, ser­vice providers and sup­pli­ers of goods) were able to ob­tain busi­ness from the for­mer Petrotrin re­fin­ery. To­day, busi­ness­es in San Fer­nan­do are just sur­viv­ing and try­ing to cope with these dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic times,” she said, not­ing that this has neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed con­sumer con­fi­dence as re­tail busi­ness has shrunk by a sig­nif­i­cant lev­el.

How­ev­er, Bartlett not­ed, “The bright spot in San Fer­nan­do is the zeal and com­mit­ment of May­or Robert Par­ris, who is de­ter­mined to bring tourism to San Fer­nan­do via the wa­ter­front project. In ad­di­tion, his de­ter­mi­na­tion to re­lo­cate the street ven­dors from High Street to an­oth­er lo­ca­tion that is con­ducive for them to ply their trade is a win-win for all. Pedes­tri­ans can now tra­verse with ease on High Street and store own­ers have seen a slight im­prove­ment in their busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties.”

On a much broad­er scale, said Gov­ern­ment needs to ad­dress per­ti­nent ques­tions such as, “What is the cur­rent state of the T&T econ­o­my? What mea­sures are be­ing put in place for im­prove­ment? What is Gov­ern­ment fail­ing to im­ple­ment and why?”

Char­ran al­so ad­vised that giv­en the cur­rent eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, own­ers of re­tail busi­ness­es ought to di­ver­si­fy their en­ti­ties and in­clude oth­er arms such as man­u­fac­tur­ing and agro pro­cess­ing for ex­port to be­come net earn­ers of for­eign ex­change.

Deal­ing with un­em­ploy­ment is al­so crit­i­cal as the CR­BC’s vice-chair­man and pres­i­dent of the East­ern Busi­ness Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion Ri­car­do Mo­hammed called on Gov­ern­ment to seek ways and de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes to get un­em­ployed youth in east­ern Trinidad in­volved in agri­cul­ture and even in agro-based in­dus­tries.

He fur­ther rec­om­mend­ed a wind en­er­gy farm in the east­ern seaboard to en­hance and ex­pand the re­new­able en­er­gy ini­tia­tive which can com­pli­ment the pro­posed so­lar en­er­gy project at Ca­roni. In ad­di­tion, Mo­hammed said con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en for the es­tab­lish­ment of a tourism hub in this same area to at­tract both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors.

As it re­lates to crime and se­cu­ri­ty, Ang­ie Jairam, pres­i­dent of the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce (FCOC), wants more pub­lic/pri­vate par­tic­i­pa­tion say­ing, “The Fyz­abad Cham­ber in­tends to work more close­ly with the sta­tion coun­cil, the com­mu­ni­ty po­lice di­vi­sion and the po­lice youth club, all with­in Fyz­abad, to de­vise strate­gies to mit­i­gate any fu­ture crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties while keep­ing vul­ner­a­ble youths in­volved in con­struc­tive ac­tiv­i­ties and en­sur­ing that they con­tin­ue to at­tend school.”

In ad­di­tion, she not­ed the FCOC in­tents to in­vite Crime Stop­pers to ad­dress its mem­ber­ship and oth­er in­ter­est­ed stake­hold­ers to help build con­fi­dence in peo­ple want­i­ng to give in­for­ma­tion per­tain­ing to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

How­ev­er, Jairam urged that such mea­sures must get the much-need­ed fund­ing from Gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing on peren­ni­al prob­lem of the ease of do­ing busi­ness­es, Jairam said the FCOC will con­tin­ue to lob­by for the Gov­ern­ment to put sys­tems in place to ad­dress this is­sue.

Mean­while, Ram­per­sad Sieu­raj, di­rec­tor of the CR­BC, em­pha­sised the need for the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) with im­me­di­ate ef­fect and a strin­gent en­force­ment of the col­lec­tion and au­dit arms with par­tic­u­lar em­pha­sis of au­dits on the very wealthy in so­ci­ety.

“It’s an es­tab­lished fact that there are 30 to 40 per cent of un­col­lect­ed tax­es whilst the com­plaint tax­pay­ers are bur­dened with ad­di­tion­al tax­es. This is gross­ly un­fair,” Sieu­raj said.

As it re­lates to in­fra­struc­ture, Samuel George of the Gas­par­il­lo Cham­ber said his dis­trict is a grow­ing busi­ness area and echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments that crime and se­cu­ri­ty need to be ur­gent­ly ad­dressed, as he al­so called for high­way pa­trol of­fi­cers to be put in strate­gic lo­ca­tions to mon­i­tor and pe­nalise er­rant dri­vers.

As Gas­par­il­lo con­tin­ues to de­vel­op George al­so wants a so­lu­tion to the “an­noy­ing and ag­gra­vat­ing traf­fic prob­lem” when en­ter­ing and ex­it­ing the area.

Emer­son Chadee, pres­i­dent of the Siparia Cham­ber, rec­om­mend­ed that the com­mu­ni­ty’s unique his­to­ry be chan­nelled for lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al tourism. 

More im­por­tant­ly, he said the bor­ough has vast ar­eas of un­used State lands which can be used for new in­dus­tries in­clud­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, tech­nol­o­gy and lo­gis­tics.

“Iden­ti­fy niche sec­tor. Re­search which in­dus­tries are thriv­ing in the re­gion or have growth po­ten­tial. Fo­cus on sec­tors that align with lo­cal strengths or re­sources,” Chadee said, as he al­so sug­gest­ed there be tax breaks, grants, or oth­er means to at­tract spe­cif­ic in­dus­tries.

“For ex­am­ple, re­new­able en­er­gy com­pa­nies might be in­ter­est­ed in large tracts of land for so­lar farms or wind tur­bines. Trans­form these un­used lands in­to pro­duc­tive spaces such as parks, wet­lands, or new busi­ness­es. This not on­ly ben­e­fits the en­vi­ron­ment but al­so con­tributes to eco­nom­ic growth,” Chadee added.

Fur­ther, he said there should be zon­ing reg­u­la­tions con­ducive to in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment to stream­line the per­mit­ting process­es to en­cour­age in­vest­ment.

Chadee al­so rec­om­mend­ed in­vest­ment in train­ing pro­grammes to equip lo­cal res­i­dents with skills need­ed for new in­dus­tries as well as col­lab­o­ra­tion with ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions to tai­lor mea­sures to in­dus­try re­quire­ments.

“Map in­dus­tri­al projects to the avail­abil­i­ty of skilled work­ers. Part­ner with vo­ca­tion­al schools and tech­ni­cal in­sti­tutes to en­sure a ready work­force. In­volve lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties in the plan­ning process. Un­der­stand their needs, con­cerns and as­pi­ra­tions for the un­used lands.

“De­vel­op a long-term vi­sion for the area. Con­sid­er fac­tors like en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, qual­i­ty of life and eq­ui­table de­vel­op­ment. Suc­cess­ful in­dus­tri­al land re­de­vel­op­ment re­quires a holis­tic ap­proach, in­volv­ing gov­ern­ment agen­cies, pri­vate in­vestors, and com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers. By strate­gi­cal­ly util­is­ing un­used state lands, we can fos­ter eco­nom­ic growth, job cre­ation, and com­mu­ni­ty well-be­ing,” Chadee fur­ther ex­plained.