The yacht­ing sec­tor is step­ping up its dri­ve to at­tract ex­port-ori­ent­ed in­vest­ment, with a new elec­tron­ic clear­ance sys­tem.

Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj says the new dig­i­tal Sail­Clear sys­tem that cuts yacht clear­ance times from four hours to 15 min­utes is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive Cab­i­net’s ap­proval with­in weeks.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter a Trinidad and To­ba­go Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones Au­thor­i­ty (TTSEZA) pub­lic aware­ness ses­sion at the Brix Ho­tel on Thurs­day, Ma­haraj said the elec­tron­ic clear­ance sys­tem has al­ready been suc­cess­ful­ly test­ed and is ready for roll­out.

“It has to go to Cab­i­net, un­for­tu­nate­ly. It’s ready to launch. All the agen­cies have giv­en their bless­ing,” Ma­haraj out­lined. He ex­pects ap­proval with­in “two to three weeks.”

The min­is­ter said the pi­lot pro­gramme re­duced pro­cess­ing times from four hours to just 15 min­utes, a move he be­lieves will make T&T more com­pet­i­tive in the re­gion­al yacht­ing sec­tor.

He said yacht ar­rivals are al­ready in­creas­ing.

“Last year, we had 747 yachts com­ing in. We’ve passed 500 al­ready, and it’s pick­ing up,” Ma­haraj said. “We’re ex­pect­ing, by the end of this year, we’ll have over 1,000 and maybe 2,000 next year.”

Asked whether the cur­rent State of Emer­gency was af­fect­ing in­vestor con­fi­dence, Ma­haraj dis­missed those con­cerns.

“No­body is tak­ing it on. Every­body’s in­vest­ment con­fi­dence is very high, and it’s grow­ing. It’s not where we want it to be, but it’s grow­ing,” he said.

He al­so ex­pressed con­fi­dence that TTSEZA would be­come a stronger ve­hi­cle for at­tract­ing in­vest­ment.

“We are go­ing to en­hance it, and you heard the High Com­mis­sion­er from Pana­ma of­fer­ing his as­sis­tance. So, we’re re­fin­ing it and mak­ing it more ef­fi­cient.”

Ma­haraj said the au­thor­i­ty’s fo­cus is on busi­ness­es that earn for­eign ex­change.

“Of course, be­cause we are fo­cused on com­pa­nies that gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change.”

TTSEZA CEO Stephen De Gannes said the Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones regime builds on the for­mer Free Zones frame­work but in­tro­duces greater over­sight, ac­count­abil­i­ty and mea­sur­able per­for­mance tar­gets.

“The oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tion did have the fore­sight to ac­cept that they need­ed to make a change to the Free Zones Act,” De Gannes said. “This Gov­ern­ment has tak­en that and changed it a lit­tle bit more to spring­board it to greater chances of suc­cess, al­so by mea­sur­ing what we are achiev­ing.”

He said the au­thor­i­ty now has stronger mon­i­tor­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and is ag­gres­sive­ly pur­su­ing in­vest­ment tar­gets.

The au­thor­i­ty of­fi­cial­ly be­gan op­er­at­ing af­ter the leg­is­la­tion was pro­claimed in Ju­ly 2024. De Gannes said one com­pa­ny ini­tial­ly en­tered the regime but lat­er ex­it­ed af­ter fail­ing to re­ceive the ben­e­fits it ex­pect­ed.

“Since then, we’ve had about sev­en or eight oth­er peo­ple who have come in­to the area, and we ex­pect that this is go­ing to con­tin­ue to grow as the years go by.”

He de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my be­yond en­er­gy.

“This can be an area of suc­cess for Trinidad in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor, and that’s what we want to con­tribute to­wards.”

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about the State of Emer­gency and its im­pact on in­vest­ment, De Gannes said in­vestors con­tin­ue to view T&T as a vi­able des­ti­na­tion.

“Trinidad is a very good, safe place to in­vest, and we en­cour­age peo­ple to come here. We have very good feed­back from the peo­ple who are for­eign­ers who are in the coun­try.”

He added that the au­thor­i­ty is tar­get­ing ex­port-fo­cused busi­ness­es that will gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change.

“With the type of in­vest­ments we’re try­ing to at­tract, which would be ex­port-ori­ent­ed, those things would gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change for the in­vestors as well as for the coun­try.”

Dur­ing his ad­dress, De Gannes said TTSEZA has al­ready li­censed sev­er­al com­pa­nies un­der the new regime in sec­tors in­clud­ing lo­gis­tics and dis­tri­b­u­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ing and busi­ness process out­sourc­ing.

He said in­vestor in­ter­est has con­tin­ued to grow since op­er­a­tions be­gan and ex­pressed con­fi­dence that more com­pa­nies will en­ter the regime.

“Our ob­jec­tive is sim­ple: We want in­vestors to spend less time nav­i­gat­ing bu­reau­cra­cy and more time in­vest­ing, ex­pand­ing and cre­at­ing val­ue.”

Speak­ing at the event, Ma­haraj said the Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones regime must work as part of a broad­er eco­nom­ic strat­e­gy rather than op­er­ate in iso­la­tion.

“The SEZ regime must not de­vel­op as a pol­i­cy is­land,” he said.

He said in­cen­tives must en­cour­age gen­uine­ly new in­vest­ment rather than re­ward busi­ness­es for sim­ply chang­ing their sta­tus.

“Reg­u­la­to­ry ef­fi­cien­cy does not mean di­min­ished stan­dards. In­vestors val­ue ju­ris­dic­tions in which re­quire­ments are clear, de­ci­sions are time­ly, and rules are ap­plied con­sis­tent­ly. Cred­i­bil­i­ty is it­self an in­vest­ment ad­van­tage.”

Ma­haraj said the au­thor­i­ty has a dual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to fa­cil­i­tate in­vest­ment while safe­guard­ing the in­tegri­ty of the regime.

“It must be ac­ces­si­ble with­out be­com­ing per­mis­sive, and rig­or­ous with­out be­com­ing ob­struc­tive,” he added.