T&T has se­cured the con­tin­ued sus­pen­sion of the Cari­com’s Com­mon Ex­ter­nal Tar­iff (CET) on a range of items such as ched­dar cheese, corned beef, and ba­by food.

This was done dur­ing the 57th meet­ing of the Coun­cil for Trade and Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment (COT­ED) dur­ing the pe­ri­od No­vem­ber 27-28, in George­town, Guyana.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try said the meet­ing ap­proved T&T’s pro­pos­als for the sus­pen­sion of the CET on var­i­ous prod­ucts to sup­port lo­cal and re­gion­al in­dus­tries and pro­mote eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment for one year from Jan­u­ary 1-De­cem­ber 31, 2024.

Specif­i­cal­ly, the CET re­mains sus­pend­ed on ba­sic food items such as dried salt­ed pol­lock, black tea, pas­ta, canned fish and ac­tive yeast.

The min­istry in­di­cat­ed that the sus­pen­sion of the CET on these items is in­tend­ed in­ter alia to main­tain low­er prices for con­sumers dur­ing these in­fla­tion­ary times.

The av­er­age an­nu­al rev­enue fore­gone re­sult­ing from the sus­pen­sion of the CET on these items (based on im­port da­ta from 2020–2022) is es­ti­mat­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$27.3 mil­lion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it said ap­proval was al­so grant­ed for the sus­pen­sion of the CET on a list of pub­lic health sup­plies, which these items con­tribute to the pre­ven­tion of the spread of mos­qui­to-borne dis­eases to the pop­u­la­tion.

The sus­pen­sion of the CET was al­so se­cured on a list of ad­di­tion­al prod­ucts which in­clud­ed safe­ty prod­ucts (PPE) such as gas masks and wa­ter­proof boots etc, which are in­tend­ed to pro­mote in­dus­tri­al safe­ty.

The min­istry not­ed that COT­ED al­so ap­proved the sus­pen­sion of the CET to in­crease the rate of du­ty on Ce­ment to 20 per cent to pro­tect the do­mes­tic ce­ment and con­struc­tion in­dus­tries.

“This re­quest was in­formed by con­sul­ta­tions by the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (TTCA).

“No­tably, the TTCA in­di­cat­ed its sup­port for the con­tin­ued sus­pen­sion of the CET on ce­ment at 20 per cent, cit­ing that ce­ment is a crit­i­cal in­put ma­te­r­i­al in the con­struc­tion sec­tor and con­tributes to em­ploy­ment and for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion, and as such there is a need for con­tin­ued lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing of high-qual­i­ty ce­ment,” the re­lease fur­ther stat­ed.

The COT­ED is the body with­in CARI­COM re­spon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing trade in goods and ser­vices and sus­tain­able re­gion­al eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Fifty-Sev­enth Meet­ing of the COT­ED was crit­i­cal to en­sur­ing na­tion­al in­ter­ests are re­flect­ed in re­gion­al poli­cies and ini­tia­tives.