An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Fif­teen lo­cal and for­eign com­pa­nies are in­ter­est­ed in in­vest­ing un­der the new Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone (SEZ) regime, and T&T stands to ben­e­fit from the $200 mil­lion that these en­ter­pris­es could in­vest.

So said In­vesTT pres­i­dent Sek­ou Al­leyne as he not­ed that be­fore the SEZ was ful­ly pro­claimed on Ju­ly 5, he was sen­si­tis­ing the in­vestors from man­u­fac­tur­ing, lo­gis­tics and Busi­ness Process Out­sourc­ing (BPO) sec­tors.

Al­lyene said the in­vestors were keen on the SEZ due to the fis­cal in­cen­tives and all the oth­er at­trib­ut­es T&T has to of­fer.

He al­so in­di­cat­ed that two oth­er ma­jor projects on the hori­zon can add up to $1 bil­lion in­clud­ing the $200 mil­lion.

“We ex­pect in the next fis­cal year to be able to demon­strate the sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment that would be de­liv­ered through the SEZ. There are 5,400 SEZs glob­al­ly and 600 in the re­gion. Bil­lions of dol­lars are flow­ing in­to the SEZs and we are look­ing for that cat­a­lyst to hap­pen in T&T,” Al­leyne added.

Al­leyne was speak­ing at a fo­rum “Pri­vate Sec­tor Op­por­tu­ni­ties in the SEZ,” host­ed by the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ernst & Young (EY) yes­ter­day.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress, Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon said the coun­try’s new SEZ regime is well po­si­tioned to boost en­tre­pre­neurs and in­vest­ment in the coun­try.

The min­is­ter gave an overview of some of the changes to SEZs.

“We hope that SEZs will be mod­els of ef­fi­cien­cy and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty that can be repli­cat­ed through­out our econ­o­my. The re­al­i­ty is that not every busi­ness in T&T will be el­i­gi­ble to par­tic­i­pate in the SEZ regime as it is meant to in­cen­tivize new in­vest­ment ac­tiv­i­ty.”

She not­ed that the SEZ in­cen­tives will cov­er all three types of SEZ en­ti­ties: SEZ op­er­a­tors, which act as land­lords of Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones; SEZ en­ter­pris­es, that con­duct busi­ness with­in those spaces man­aged by op­er­a­tors; and Sin­gle Zone En­ter­pris­es, which are large stand-alone op­er­a­tions.

Goope-Scoon said to en­sure that the new pro­gramme is off to a quick start, the Cab­i­net has re­cent­ly des­ig­nat­ed sev­er­al spaces as Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion.

“These will be an­nounced in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture in the up­com­ing na­tion­al bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion. Fur­ther des­ig­na­tions of spaces will con­tin­ue there­after.”

Al­so, the min­is­ter said the SEZ regime’s fis­cal in­cen­tives in­clude a 15 per cent cor­po­ra­tion tax, a gen­er­ous port­fo­lio of con­ces­sions and ex­emp­tions on im­port du­ties and VAT, as well as oth­er tax­es such as prop­er­ty tax and stamp du­ty.

CEO of the SEZ Au­thor­i­ty Stephen de Gannes not­ed that the zones, in par­tic­u­lar, will fo­cus on op­por­tu­ni­ties out­side of the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“It’s an en­abling au­thor­i­ty that we would like to as­sist in the growth and de­vel­op­ment of in­vest­ment in Trinidad. And that’s what the au­thor­i­ty re­al­ly is. We try to have the leg­is­la­tion that al­lows us to make busi­ness eas­i­er in Trinidad. The min­istry has done quite a lot in the last few years to en­cour­age the ease of do­ing busi­ness in Trinidad. We have en­abling agen­cies and en­abling de­part­ments that con­tribute to that area,” de Gannes out­lined.

He not­ed that the aim is to take in­vest­ment to an­oth­er lev­el.