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Friday, February 14, 2025

Fyzabad Chamber against flotation

by

Andrea Perez-Sobers
86 days ago
20241120
Fyzabad MP Dr Lackram Bodoe, left, Fyzabad Chamber of Commerce president Angie Jairam and Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA), chief executive officer Dr Mahindra Ramesh Ramdeen at the chamber’s Christmas Gala Dinner at Paria Suites Hotel on Saturday.

Fyzabad MP Dr Lackram Bodoe, left, Fyzabad Chamber of Commerce president Angie Jairam and Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA), chief executive officer Dr Mahindra Ramesh Ramdeen at the chamber’s Christmas Gala Dinner at Paria Suites Hotel on Saturday.

COURTESY:SHEM WILLIAMS

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ang­ie Jairam is of the strong view that float­ing the dol­lar will take in­fla­tion up.

Speak­ing at the cham­ber’s Christ­mas din­ner over the week­end at Paria Suites Ho­tel, Jairam said it has been re­it­er­at­ed in many sec­tors that in­vest­ment must be done in the agri­cul­ture, tech­nol­o­gy, ed­u­ca­tion, and tourism sec­tors to be­come for­eign ex­change earn­ers and come away from the de­pen­den­cy of oil and gas.

“The for­eign ex­change is­sues—have test­ed us all. These is­sues don’t just af­fect our bal­ance sheets; they im­pact our lives, our fam­i­lies, and our com­mu­ni­ties. But de­spite these hard­ships, I am con­tin­u­ous­ly in­spired by the cre­ativ­i­ty, tenac­i­ty, and re­source­ful­ness that our busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and by ex­ten­sion, our cit­i­zens apt­ly demon­strate every day,” Jairam stressed.

On Mon­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment will not bow to “spe­cial in­ter­est pres­sure” to de­val­ue the TT dol­lar.

Speak­ing on the for­eign ex­change is­sue for the first time yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said the pres­sure to de­val­ue was com­ing from peo­ple who large­ly have for­eign ex­change.

He said de­val­u­a­tion will in­crease costs and make those with for­eign ex­change wealth­i­er.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dr Mahin­dra Ramesh Ramdeen said that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty needs to as­sert it­self in the ex­port mar­ket and that earn­ing its for­eign ex­change is of para­mount im­por­tance in to­day’s en­vi­ron­ment, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the chal­lenges of the coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor.

“SMES ought can­not con­tin­ue to de­pend on the Cen­tral Bank to be the provider of their needs con­cern­ing Forex. There is a role still for the gov­ern­ment to play and it is to be the best fa­cil­i­ta­tor, but don’t crowd out the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty from the mar­ket­place.”

He iden­ti­fied crime as be­ing a ma­jor ob­sta­cle for small busi­ness op­er­a­tions and mov­ing to­ward a dig­i­tal frame­work that would al­low for speed of ex­e­cu­tion of busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties and Con­ges­tion on the Road.

Ramdeen ad­vised the au­di­ence to get in­volved in man­u­fac­tur­ing, he not­ed that the de­f­i­n­i­tion of man­u­fac­tur­ing is broad and wide and that many tra­di­tion­al im­porters have moved in this di­rec­tion to pre­serve the ex­pen­di­ture of FX, while at the same time earn­ing FX through ex­port­ing. He em­pha­sised that you don’t have to pro­duce an item from scratch to qual­i­fy as a man­u­fac­tur­er and so reap all the re­wards of du­ty-free con­ces­sions, ex­port­ing to part­ner coun­tries du­ty-free, and be­ing a bene­fac­tor for var­i­ous funds such as the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion grant, Re­search, and De­vel­op­ment Grant, ex­port pro­mo­tion in­cen­tives.

No wage hikes for of­fice hold­ers

Jairam said the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s (SRC) re­port propos­ing wage hikes for 950 state of­fi­cials across 325 cat­e­gories of of­fices should not even be a thought on the ta­ble at this time.

“Peo­ple are al­ready un­der deep stress to man­age their dai­ly sur­vival, mak­ing sac­ri­fices at every lev­el. I was at some busi­ness place and heard an em­ploy­ee ask­ing if she could find out if the pay­roll clerk paid week­ly salaries...he has to pay an in­stall­ment, and that’s the re­al­i­ty on the ground with many sto­ries. Busi­ness­es and cit­i­zens should make sac­ri­fices but with the hope that their lives will be im­proved not to fur­ther suf­fer or have less. Gov­ern­ments have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to im­prove ser­vices and as­sist busi­ness­es and cit­i­zens to seek out op­por­tu­ni­ties and feel safe to take risks and be suc­cess­ful for the ben­e­fit of all stake­hold­ers, she lament­ed.


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