GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try con­tin­ues to ex­pand and en­hance the TTBi­zLink plat­form as five new ser­vices from two key agen­cies,the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try’s Trade Li­cence Unit and Tourism Trinidad Ltd, have been in­te­grat­ed in­to the ser­vice.

This brings the to­tal num­ber of ser­vices to 53, span­ning 25 Gov­ern­ment agen­cies across nine min­istries, said Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon, who made the re­marks yes­ter­day at the launch of new TTBi­zLink ser­vices, at the min­istry's of­fices at Nicholas Tow­er, Port-of-Spain.

The min­is­ter ex­plained each new ser­vice is de­signed to fur­ther stream­line crit­i­cal busi­ness process­es and im­prove the ease of do­ing busi­ness.

In high­light­ing the new ser­vices Gopee-Scoon said these in­clude:

*No­tice of in­ten­tion to load scrap met­al for ex­port

This al­lows ap­proved scrap met­al deal­ers in T&T to re­quest ap­point­ments for the su­per­vi­sion of load­ing of scrap met­al for ex­port, by sub­mit­ting their no­tice of in­ten­tion to load on­line. The ad­min­is­ter­ing body is the MTI’s Trade Li­cence Unit.

* Per­mit for the ship­ment and/or al­ter­ation of scrap met­al

This al­lows ap­proved scrap met­al deal­ers to ap­ply on­line for ap­proval to re­duce or mod­i­fy the size of scrap met­al, mak­ing it eas­i­er to trans­port to an ap­proved scrap met­al site for ship­ment. The ad­min­is­ter­ing body is the MTI’s Trade Li­cence Unit.

*Per­mit for the ship­ment of bro­ken ma­chin­ery:

This al­lows ap­proved scrap met­al deal­ers to ap­ply on­line for ap­proval to ship bro­ken ma­chin­ery di­rect­ly from the place of pur­chase, elim­i­nat­ing the need to trans­port it to an ap­proved scrap met­al site. The ad­min­is­ter­ing body is the MTI’s Trade Li­cence Unit.

Gopee-Scoon added these ser­vices will stream­line ap­provals, re­duce pro­cess­ing times and strength­en over­sight, en­sur­ing that the scrap met­al sec­tor op­er­ates with in­tegri­ty while con­tribut­ing to sus­tain­able trade prac­tices.

The new ser­vices aso in­clude:

*In­ter­im ap­proval for a tourism project

This al­lows en­ti­ties to re­ceive in­ter­im ap­proval for in­cen­tives for the con­struc­tion of tourism projects that would as­sist the de­vel­op­ment of the tourism in­dus­try. The ad­min­is­ter­ing body is Tourism Trinidad Ltd, a spe­cial pur­pose state en­ter­prise un­der the purview of the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts.

* Du­ty-free per­mit for a tourism project

This en­ables en­ti­ties that have been grant­ed in­ter­im ap­proval to ap­ply on­line for a per­mit to im­port items free of cus­toms du­ty for the re­spec­tive project. Tourism Trinidad Ltd ad­min­is­ters this ser­vice.

The min­is­ter fur­ther added that these new ser­vices will sup­port in­vest­ment and de­vel­op­ment in the tourism sec­tor, which is an im­por­tant con­trib­u­tor to eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

"By digi­tis­ing these process­es, we are re­mov­ing bot­tle­necks, at­tract­ing in­vest­ment and po­si­tion­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go as a com­pet­i­tive des­ti­na­tion for tourism de­vel­op­ment," she said, adding that the ex­pan­sion of TTBi­zLink aligns with broad­er busi­ness fa­cil­i­ta­tion re­forms.

Gopee-Scoon not­ed that since its in­cep­tion in 2009, TTBi­zLink has been a trail­blaz­er, not just for T&T, but for the en­tire Caribbean re­gion as it was the first Sin­gle Elec­tron­ic Win­dow of its kind in the re­gion. The plat­form rev­o­lu­tionised how busi­ness­es in­ter­act with Gov­ern­ment agen­cies by con­sol­i­dat­ing trade and busi­ness-re­lat­ed ser­vices in­to a sin­gle, stream­lined dig­i­tal plat­form. In 2023, the en­hanced TTBi­zLink Plat­form was launched.