An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Son­ji Pierre-Chase is pleased with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo’s em­pha­sis on press­ing is­sues such as for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty, debt man­age­ment, tax re­form, and ex­port-led growth, dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2025 Mid-Year Fis­cal Re­view.

“The pri­vate sec­tor is en­cour­aged by the Gov­ern­ment’s stat­ed in­ten­tions. We look for­ward to fur­ther col­lab­o­ra­tion on mea­sures to ad­dress for­eign ex­change al­lo­ca­tion, im­prove the ease of do­ing busi­ness, and ad­vance pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships (PPPs),” Pierre-Chase said.

In re­sponse to the mea­sures out­lined in the re­view, the T&T Cham­ber said it sup­ports sev­er­al pro­pos­als aimed at ad­dress­ing for­eign ex­change short­ages, in­clud­ing, the es­tab­lish­ment of a For­eign Ex­change Al­lo­ca­tion Com­mit­tee, work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with stake­hold­ers to pro­mote greater trans­paren­cy and eq­ui­ty in the sys­tem; en­hanced re­port­ing oblig­a­tions for high-vol­ume im­porters to en­sure bet­ter mon­i­tor­ing of in­flows and out­flows; the de­vel­op­ment of prof­it repa­tri­a­tion pro­to­cols that re­flect best prac­tices, such as those im­ple­ment­ed in Bar­ba­dos, to bol­ster in­vestor con­fi­dence; con­sid­er­a­tion of tax ex­emp­tions on for­eign cur­ren­cy earn­ings; and a re­view of T&T’s net­work of bi­lat­er­al tax treaties, to pro­mote tax har­mon­i­sa­tion across the re­gion.

The T&T Cham­ber pres­i­dent al­so com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s recog­ni­tion that ex­port-led growth is crit­i­cal to achiev­ing a di­ver­si­fied econ­o­my.

She said the cham­ber sup­ports ini­tia­tives such as the in­tro­duc­tion of an ex­port al­lowance and in­cen­tives, par­tic­u­lar­ly for pri­or­i­ty sec­tors like agro-pro­cess­ing, ICT ser­vices, and niche man­u­fac­tur­ing. It al­so sup­ports the es­tab­lish­ment of an ex­port pro­ceeds re­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ty, which would al­low ex­porters to re­tain a por­tion of their for­eign cur­ren­cy earn­ings en­sur­ing more pre­dictable ac­cess to for­eign ex­change for rein­vest­ment and growth.

“The T&T Cham­ber re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing close­ly with the Gov­ern­ment and oth­er part­ners to sup­port the ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion of these and oth­er ini­tia­tives. We look for­ward to con­tin­ued en­gage­ment on im­prov­ing the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment, en­hanc­ing trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, strength­en­ing Pri­vate Pub­lic Part­ner­ships (PPP) arrange­ments, and ul­ti­mate­ly un­lock­ing eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty for all cit­i­zens,” Pierre Chase added.

Tan­coo in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day said “We met T&T’s econ­o­my in the in­ten­sive care unit (ICU) … but we’ll fix it... We’re in cri­sis due to the PNM … to­day we’re here to pay bills caused by the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. In this mid-year pack­age ‘clean-up’ bill, we’re forced to sup­ple­ment a PNM bud­get. This isn’t our short­fall. It’s the lat­est chap­ter in their long his­to­ry of se­r­i­al un­der­bud­get­ing.”

Tan­coo pi­lot­ed the de­bate to ap­prove amend­ments to the 2025 Bud­get, which was $59.741 bil­lion.