GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) says is it is pleased that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert in­tends to pri­va­tise some State en­ter­pris­es, say­ing this has been “a pri­ma­ry lob­by­ing” is­sue by the as­so­ci­a­tion.

“The pro­posed pri­vati­sa­tion of ports and the new per­son­al in­come ceil­ing re­flects Gov­ern­ment is lis­ten­ing and re­spon­sive to rec­om­men­da­tions from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty,” TTMA Pres­i­dent Fran­ka Costel­loe said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

She said the TTMA how­ev­er, is cau­tious on the is­sue of tax waivers on im­port­ed build­ing ma­te­ri­als, say­ing it is seek­ing clar­i­ty on how this im­pacts man­u­fac­tur­er of lo­cal build­ing ma­te­ri­als.

Costel­loe al­so not­ed the min­is­ter’s in­ten­tion to im­prove the ease of do­ing busi­ness through the im­ple­men­ta­tion of build­ing an “e-Gov­ern­ment” will pro­vide the foun­da­tion for trans­for­ma­tion to al­low man­u­fac­tur­ing to thrive. “How­ev­er, we are cog­nizant that what is mea­sured gets done and so are re­lieved to hear the min­is­ter’s in­ten­tion to

track and re­port on progress of this dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion,”Costel­loe said.

She said Gov­ern­ment’s an­nounce­ment of the en­hance­ment of the ju­nior stock ex­change with a five year tax ex­emp­tion and a 50 per cent re­duc­tion in the tax rate for the fol­low­ing five years, mir­rors the TTMA’s fo­cus in its man­u­fac­tur­ing strat­e­gy on a busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment that is con­ducive to en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion.

“Sup­ply chain man­age­ment and costs are cen­tral to the man­u­fac­tur­ing process. It is our hope that the pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of the agro-pro­cess­ing in­dus­try in 2021 will pro­vide the lo­cal raw ma­te­ri­als need­ed in the man­u­fac­tur­ing process, there­by re­duc­ing the $4 bil­lion im­port bill and cre­ate niche en­tre­pre­neurs,”Costel­loe added.

She said the TTMA has been ad­vo­cat­ing for a more ef­fi­cient VAT Re­fund sys­tem, con­sis­tent with pro­vi­sions with­in the law and fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tions, adding that the TTMA looks for­ward to its im­ple­men­ta­tion through the TTRA.

Costel­loe said the TTMA was al­so please that the in­creased al­low­able rate on wear

and tear on equip­ment from 25 per cent to 30 per cent was al­so im­ple­ment­ed, not­ing this was al­so rec­om­men­da­tion by the TTMA to im­prove cash flows.

“Spe­cif­ic to sup­port for SMEs, the TTMA rec­om­mend­ed a re­newed al­lo­ca­tion of $100M US to man­u­fac­tur­ers an­nu­al­ly and the en­hance­ment of cap­i­tal mar­kets through pri­vate eq­ui­ty and ex­it mech­a­nisms, as well as tax cred­it to busi­ness­es in­vest­ing in tech­nol­o­gy and soft­ware im­ple­men­ta­tion.

“The Gov­ern­ment has re­spond­ed by speak­ing to the fur­ther ex­pan­sion and growth of EX­IM Bank geared to­wards pro­vid­ing en­hanced as­sis­tance to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty,”Costel­loe said.

She not­ed the call for Eteck to be a fa­cil­i­ta­tor to man­u­fac­tur­ers of niche prod­ucts is of par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est as the TTMA has ad­vo­cat­ed for the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of lease rates and planned up­grades to fa­cil­i­ties at in­dus­tri­al parks.