Of the 21 min­istries that form the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion of T&T, the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try is pro­ject­ed to re­ceive the low­est al­lo­ca­tion for the 2025 fis­cal year.

The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try’s to­tal al­lo­ca­tion for 2025 is $242.13 mil­lion, which places it be­low the $251.79 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion and the $262.98 mil­lion that the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs is pro­ject­ed to re­ceive in the cur­rent fis­cal year.

De­spite what may ap­pear to be gup­py-sized fund­ing, the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try has been tasked with mak­ing a whale-sized con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of the T&T econ­o­my, as the en­gine room dri­ving the growth of the non-en­er­gy sec­tor in a coun­try grap­pling with the need to di­ver­si­fy its econ­o­my away from de­pen­dence on the en­er­gy sec­tor.

The Min­istry of Trade’s to­tal re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture al­lo­ca­tion of $166.13 mil­lion for the 2025 fis­cal year is ac­tu­al­ly 51.67 per cent more than the $109.53 mil­lion it re­ceived in 2023.

In his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion on Sep­tem­ber 30, Min­istry of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert took note of the con­tri­bu­tion of the non-en­er­gy sec­tor.

Im­bert point­ed out that the T&T econ­o­my grew by 1.3 per cent in 2023, and is pro­ject­ed to grow by 1.9 per cent in 2024.

He said the growth in the econ­o­my in 2023, was achieved de­spite a 5.6 per cent con­trac­tion in the en­er­gy sec­tor, as the 2.5 per cent up­swing in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor off­set the de­cline in the con­tri­bu­tion of oil and nat­ur­al gas.

Im­bert said the econ­o­my is fore­cast to grow by 1.9 per cent in 2024, which is pred­i­cat­ed on a pro­ject­ed growth of 2.4 per cent in non-en­er­gy sec­tor.

To achieve the pro­ject­ed growth in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor, Im­bert said, “Specif­i­cal­ly, strong growth is pro­ject­ed in the food, bev­er­ages and to­bac­co prod­ucts man­u­fac­tur­ing sub-in­dus­try of 9.1 per cent, dri­ven by in­creas­ing lo­cal de­mand and ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties. Growth is al­so ex­pect­ed in oth­er sec­tors, in­clud­ing trade and re­pairs of 3.0 per cent, con­struc­tion of 2.3 per cent, trans­port and stor­age of 2.1 per cent and fi­nan­cial and in­sur­ance ac­tiv­i­ties at 2.1 per cent. The trade and re­pairs in­dus­try stands to ben­e­fit from ex­pand­ed trad­ing mar­kets over­seas, re­flect­ing our strate­gic po­si­tion­ing in the glob­al mar­ket­place.”

In her con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate on Mon­day, Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try, Sen­a­tor Paula Gopee-Scoon out­lined the thrust to ex­pand for­eign mar­ket op­por­tu­ni­ties. She said from 2015 - 2024, 71 trade mis­sions and trade shows gen­er­at­ed hun­dreds of ex­port leads.

Giv­ing a break­down of some of the trade mis­sions, Gopee-Scoon said the one in Ghana in March gen­er­at­ed re­sults for Lazuri Ap­par­el (ap­par­el man­u­fac­tur­er in Barataria) and it is cur­rent­ly sourc­ing raw ma­te­ri­als from Ghana as in­put in­to the com­pa­ny’s man­u­fac­tur­ing process.  

Gopee-Scoon point­ed out that Un­queue (an ICT ser­vice provider) has se­cured ap­provals for the use of its soft­ware in Ghana, Benin, To­go, Liberia, and Sier­ra Leone through a li­cens­ing agree­ment and that Bermudez Bis­cuit Com­pa­ny Ltd and KC Con­fec­tionery Ltd are ad­vanced in en­ter­ing the West African mar­ket.

The min­is­ter led a group of 20 lo­cal pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies from the food and bev­er­age, chem­i­cal and house­hold and con­struc­tion sec­tors on a trade mis­sion to Cana­da last month, which has al­ready re­sult­ed on strong leads for many of the par­tic­i­pants.

In the bud­get speech, Im­bert un­der­scored the con­tri­bu­tion of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, point­ing out that it con­tributed 96 per cent to to­tal non-en­er­gy ex­ports in 2023 up from 91 per cent in 2020, but not­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor as a per­cent­age of to­tal ex­ports fell from 26 per cent in 2020 to 22 per cent in fis­cal 2023.

“Sev­er­al man­u­fac­tur­ing sub­sec­tors ex­pe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant gains in ex­port over the fis­cal 2020 to 2023 pe­ri­od in­clud­ing food and bev­er­ages with 40 per cent growth, pa­per and pa­per-re­lat­ed prod­ucts with 47 per cent, plas­tic and rub­ber prod­ucts at 66 per cent, ba­sic chem­i­cals and fer­tilis­ers with 46 per cent, glass and glass prod­ucts, 161 per cent, fur­ni­ture and light fit­tings, 34 per cent, cloth­ing, tex­tiles and ap­par­els, 63 per cent and wood and wood-re­lat­ed prod­ucts, 46 per cent,” Im­bert said.

New agency

Im­bert al­so fo­cussed some at­ten­tion on the T&T Trade and In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency (T&TTI­PA), which was es­tab­lished n Au­gust as the amal­ga­ma­tion of ex­port and in­vest­ment pro­mo­tion ser­vices pre­vi­ous­ly man­aged by In­vesTT, Cre­ative and Ex­porTT.

“This new, uni­fied agency rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in trans­form­ing and en­hanc­ing the com­pet­i­tive­ness of T&T’s trade and busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment.

“By con­sol­i­dat­ing these func­tions in­to a sin­gle en­ti­ty, TIPA aims to achieve glob­al best prac­tices and in­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dards com­pa­ra­ble to lead­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al

agen­cies. This strate­gic move will stream­line and sim­pli­fy co­or­di­na­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and en­gage­ment with in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al agen­cies, pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers, in­ter­na­tion­al trad­ing part­ners and oth­er pub­lic bod­ies,” Im­bert said.

The de­tails of the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try’s al­lo­ca­tions for 2023 to 2025 in­di­cate that Ex­portTT re­ceived $16.65 ml­lion in fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance in 2023 and 2024, In­vesTT re­ceived $13.19 mil­lion in those year, while the T&T Cre­ative In­dus­tries Com­pa­ny got $14.31 mil­lion.

The T&TTI­PA re­ceived $792,226 in 2023, $13.12 mil­lion in 2024 and is due to re­ceive $35 mil­lion in the cur­rent 2025 fs­cal year.

The al­lo­ca­tion for over­seas mar­ket pro­mo­tion and de­vel­op­ment for lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers in 2025 is $3 mil­lion, which is less than the $3.56 mil­lion in­di­cat­ed by the re­vised es­ti­mate for 2024 and the ac­tu­al ex­pen­di­ture of $3.45 mil­lion for 2023.

Gopee-Scoon told Busi­ness Guardian in Au­gust that the amal­ga­ma­tion took as long as it did be­cause the le­gal as­pect was a lengthy process as Ex­port TT had sev­er­al share­hold­ers apart from the gov­ern­ment.  

“We moved as fast as we could, but we moved with the ad­vice of our le­gal part­ners, MG Daly & Part­ners, in this par­tic­u­lar in­stance and part of the ex­er­cise nat­u­ral­ly would in­volve the staff.”

She said this new agency aims to fo­cus more on new mar­kets in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and not re­main in the com­fort zone of the Cari­com re­gion.  

“We want to make sure that we can con­tin­ue to pro­vide a space for the emer­gence of new prod­ucts and new ser­vices as well. We be­lieve our peo­ple are al­so very skilled and can find and ex­port their ser­vices to the rest of the world.

The es­ti­mat­ed ex­pen­di­ture on the golf course at the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort for 2025 is $1.9 mil­lion, which is on par with the re­vised es­ti­mate for 2024, but less than the ac­tu­al ex­pen­di­ture of $2.06 mil­lion for 2023.

There is al­so a 2025 al­lo­ca­tion of $6.48 mil­lion for the op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es of com­mer­cial of­fi­cers and at­tach­es.

The min­is­ter is pro­ject­ed to re­ceived $114.56 mil­lion in trans­fers and sub­si­dies and $76 mil­lion for its de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme in 2025.