The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) is look­ing for­ward to bud­get day af­ter Tues­day’s an­nounce­ment by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­eign re­serves are back over $7 bil­lion af­ter re­ceiv­ing US$644 mil­lion via Spe­cial Draw­ing Rights from the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund..

In a re­lease on Wednes­day, the  TTMA said this de­vel­op­ment sup­port­ed its Ex­port Man­u­fac­tur­ing Strat­e­gy to dou­ble non-en­er­gy ex­ports by 2025.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said, “The US$644 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al Spe­cial Draw­ing Rights from the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, which can, from an ac­count­ing per­spec­tive, boost­er T&T’s re­serves, al­low­ing for fur­ther as­sis­tance to be af­ford­ed via the EX­IM Bank to the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. Such a boost to the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor will serve as ad­di­tion­al ar­moury to­ward pro­mot­ing and sus­tain­ing di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and ex­ports in the coun­try.”

TTMA’s Pres­i­dent Tri­cia Coos­al said in the re­lease, “The Forex Fa­cil­i­ty is spe­cif­ic to man­u­fac­tur­ers to be used for the pur­chase of raw ma­te­r­i­al, ship­ping line costs and the pur­chase of equip­ment and ma­chin­ery. TTMA pro­vides sup­port to our mem­bers via the dis­sem­i­na­tion of nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion need­ed in or­der to ap­ply for the use of the Forex Fa­cil­i­ty. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, TTMA fa­cil­i­ties meet­ings be­tween EX­IM Bank and our mem­bers to in­crease the suc­cess rate of their ap­pli­ca­tions.”

The TTMA pres­i­dent point­ed out that in 2020, through the as­so­ci­a­tion’s sup­port, US$100 mil­lion was sold to 97 man­u­fac­tur­ers, and for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to Au­gust 2021  US$81.2 mil­lion has been sold to 107 man­u­fac­tur­ers via the EX­IM Bank Forex Fa­cil­i­ty.

“We are cer­tain be­fore the end of the year, our mem­bers would ful­ly uti­lize the US$100 al­lo­cat­ed at the For­eign Ex­change Fa­cil­i­ty at EX­IM Bank.”

Coos­al said the as­so­ci­a­tion was heart­ened by the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued sup­port of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor. The TTMA said the an­nounce­ment meant that there could be an in­creased al­lo­ca­tion of re­sources to the For­eign Ex­change Fa­cil­i­ty at the Ex­im Bank,  which will act as a fil­lip to­ward grow­ing ex­ports.

She said, “This con­tin­ued ex­pan­sion and sus­te­nance of the For­eign Ex­change Fa­cil­i­ty, along­side the Gov­ern­ment’s boost­er ini­tia­tive, via the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try and ex­porTT, will work co­he­sive­ly to re­alise the goal of TTMA’s Ex­port Man­u­fac­tur­ing Strat­e­gy, which is to dou­ble non-en­er­gy ex­ports by 2025. In so do­ing, the non-en­er­gy man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor would aid sig­nif­i­cant­ly in di­ver­si­fy­ing the econ­o­my and re­move the re­liance on the en­er­gy sec­tor to be the prime gen­er­a­tor of for­eign re­serves in the coun­try.”

Coos­al said with this de­vel­op­ment the as­so­ci­a­tion was ea­ger­ly await­ing the bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

“TTMA and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty ea­ger­ly await the an­nounce­ment of the date of the read­ing of the Na­tion­al Bud­get State­ment 2022 and as­so­ci­at­ed re­lease of funds to con­tin­ue to dri­ve ex­ports.”