The T&T man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor can now ben­e­fit from Re­pub­lic Bank’s Fi­nan­cial Sup­port Pro­gramme, to­talling $1 bil­lion.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the bank said that un­der this pro­gramme, loans of up to $35 mil­lion in fund­ing per el­i­gi­ble bor­row­er will be made avail­able to the sec­tor via fa­cil­i­ties.

In this ini­tia­tive, the Bank aims to fur­ther en­hance com­pet­i­tive­ness and in­crease ex­port po­ten­tial, while al­so pro­vid­ing a means for lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers to earn much-need­ed for­eign ex­change.

Ef­fec­tive to­day, el­i­gi­ble clients will be able to take ad­van­tage of:

* Up to 100 per cent fund­ing for cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture and equip­ment ac­qui­si­tion;

* Com­pet­i­tive in­ter­est rates;

* US dol­lar loans;

* Spe­cialised as­set ac­cept­ed as se­cu­ri­ty;

* Mora­to­ri­ums aligned to as­set com­mis­sion­ing, plus up to an ad­di­tion­al six months and flex­i­ble re­pay­ment terms.
Speak­ing about the ini­tia­tive, Re­pub­lic Bank’s vice pres­i­dent, Vic Sal­ick­ram, re­it­er­at­ed a view ear­li­er ex­pressed at the Bank’s re­cent cor­po­rate work­shops for en­hanced in­tra-re­gion­al trade.

“We do not see our­selves as mere­ly your bankers, but your part­ners in achiev­ing your busi­ness goals.”

In this, Sal­ick­ram high­light­ed the ne­ces­si­ty of cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to dri­ve busi­ness growth and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, not­ing that Trinidad & To­ba­go’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor holds the key to re­gion­al trade and im­proved lo­cal for­eign ex­change earn­ings.

He al­so added that the bank will part­ner with key as­so­ci­a­tions and busi­ness cham­bers in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor to al­low for a more holis­tic sup­port for its cus­tomers.

In June 2024, Re­pub­lic Bank dis­closed that it is­sued a $1 bil­lion note, which it said would strength­en its cap­i­tal base and al­low the bank to achieve its growth strat­e­gy.

The $1 bil­lion note is due to ma­ture in June 2034; it is an un­se­cured, sub­or­di­nat­ed, fixed-rate note and will pay in­vestors 5.50 per cent, over its ten-year term, with $1 bil­lion be­ing re­turned to in­vestors by way of a bul­let pay­ment at ma­tu­ri­ty.

For the six months end­ed March 31, 2025, Re­pub­lic Bank re­port­ed af­ter-tax prof­it of $1.15 bil­lion, an im­prove­ment of 2.29 per cent com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in the pre­vi­ous year.

The fi­nan­cial group's as­sets grew by 7.8 per cent to $126.68 bil­lion at the end of March 2025.

In com­ments ac­com­pa­ny­ing the fi­nan­cials, RFHL's chair­man, Vin­cent Pereira, said,

"In a pe­ri­od marked by glob­al un­cer­tain­ty and mar­ket volatil­i­ty, we con­tin­ue to pri­or­i­tize fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty and longterm val­ue cre­ation, while al­so re­in­forc­ing our role as a re­spon­si­ble fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion.

"Our strate­gic trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney is pro­gress­ing well, and we re­main fo­cused on en­hanc­ing our dig­i­tal bank­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties, deep­en­ing cus­tomer re­la­tion­ships, and in­no­vat­ing across all touch­points."