GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Re-elect­ed pres­i­dent of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), Roger Roach says the or­gan­i­sa­tion sup­ports a “rea­son­able and eq­ui­table tax” on res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties.

“If this means not hav­ing to change en­gine mounds, bent rims or dam­aged shocks be­cause of bad roads. Or flood­ing of our com­mu­ni­ties and busi­ness­es when a buck­et of rain falls. We sup­port the em­pow­er­ing of re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions to do their jobs as these is­sues have a neg­a­tive ef­fect on pro­duc­tiv­i­ty,” Roach said while speak­ing at the TTMA’s an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing which took place at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

The de­bate re­gard­ing prop­er­ty tax is on­go­ing in Par­lia­ment.

Re­gard­ing oth­er is­sues af­fect­ing busi­ness, Roach said VAT re­funds re­main prob­lem­at­ic, stat­ing that at present there are 46 “very vo­cal mem­bers be­ing owed ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$500,000 in out­stand­ing re­funds”.

On oth­er mat­ters, Roach said the TTMA agreed with the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the much-tout­ed rev­enue au­thor­i­ty.

“To pre­vent­ing fraud and tax eva­sion, and to widen the tax net, by en­sur­ing that the en­tire bur­den is not car­ried by al­ready com­pli­ant busi­ness­es,” he ex­plained.

Re­gard­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness, Roach said there is a press­ing need for in­creased ef­fi­cien­cy at the coun­try’s ports, which serve as vi­tal gate­ways for trade and com­merce.

“De­lays and in­ef­fi­cien­cies in port op­er­a­tions not on­ly in­cur sig­nif­i­cant costs for busi­ness­es but al­so di­min­ish our na­tion’s at­trac­tive­ness as a des­ti­na­tion for in­vest­ment.

“By pri­ori­tis­ing im­prove­ments in port in­fra­struc­ture and stream­lin­ing trade process­es, we can en­hance the ease of do­ing busi­ness and un­leash the full po­ten­tial of not just the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor but the en­tire econ­o­my,” he ex­plained.

In the 2020/2021 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert an­nounced Gov­ern­ment’s plan to ra­tio­nalise the op­er­a­tions of the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T, and to in­tro­duce a pri­vate sec­tor op­er­a­tor in­to the port’s han­dling op­er­a­tions.

The Cab­i­net sub­se­quent­ly ap­point­ed a com­mit­tee, which was chaired by Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Allyson West, which pro­duced a re­port on the port’s po­ten­tial.

How­ev­er, Roach asked, “What is the sta­tus of the pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship (PPP) about this project?”

Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon, who al­so spoke at the event, themed Promise and Op­por­tu­ni­ty for a Brighter Fu­ture, not­ed that this not on­ly push­es a cul­ture of iden­ti­fy­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment but pro­motes adap­ta­tion to the chang­ing en­vi­ron­ment and po­si­tion­ing of our busi­ness­es for long-term suc­cess.

She said back­ward link­ages and a re­silient sup­ply chain are al­so cru­cial com­po­nents for fos­ter­ing a brighter fu­ture.

The min­is­ter cit­ed a re­cent study, fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the min­istry which re­vealed sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties for back­ward and for­ward link­ages be­tween man­u­fac­tur­ing and agri­cul­ture in spe­cif­ic sub­sec­tors such as poul­try, fish pro­cess­ing, chem­i­cals and food and bev­er­age.

Gopee-Scoon al­so spoke about op­por­tu­ni­ties for new prod­uct lines in fish pro­cess­ing, de­vel­op­ment of com­mer­cial farms to pro­duce crops pop­u­lar­ly used in many processed food and bev­er­age prod­ucts, and man­u­fac­tur­ing of or­gan­ic fer­tilis­ers and sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing ma­te­r­i­al.

Key op­por­tu­ni­ties were al­so iden­ti­fied in link­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor to the cre­ative and tourism sec­tors.

The trade min­is­ter not­ed that one ex­am­ple is the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion or recog­ni­tion of key ho­tels as pro­vid­ing an au­then­tic lo­cal ex­pe­ri­ence for tourists, which in turn can cre­ate the op­por­tu­ni­ty for man­u­fac­tur­ers to sup­ply the rel­e­vant in­puts in­to menu (food and bev­er­age), spa prod­ucts, and oth­er con­sum­ables, en­hanc­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence.