JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, January 30, 2025

T&T’s Special Economic Zone gets first operator

by

Andrea Perez-Sobers
37 days ago
20241225
Carenet Health

Carenet Health

Busi­ness process out­sourc­ing (BPO) op­er­a­tor Carenet Health, which ex­pand­ed to T&T shores four months ago, has re­ceived ap­proval for its ap­pli­ca­tion for a li­cence to op­er­ate in T&T’s Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones (SEZ) .

 In a news re­lease, the T&T Trade & In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency (TT­TI­PA) said Carenet, which is head­quar­tered in Texas, has been ap­proved as a Sin­gle Zone En­ter­prise as it will op­er­ate as an en­ti­ty with­in a leased com­mer­cial space in Port-of-Spain.

“Its ex­ec­u­tives se­lect­ed this coun­try pri­mar­i­ly be­cause of T&T’s high­ly skilled tal­ent, Eng­lish flu­en­cy and time zone align­ment to the US. Their ini­tial lo­ca­tion will staff over 200 health ad­vi­sors in Port-of-Spain and they al­ready have eyes on oth­er lo­ca­tions in Trinidad for fu­ture ex­pan­sion,” said TT­TI­PA.

 “We are ho­n­oured to be the first to re­ceive ap­proval by the Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone Act (SEZ) and to pave the way for the fu­ture growth of both Carenet Health and T&T. We ap­pre­ci­ate the SEZ regime and their sup­port in nav­i­gat­ing the process. Carenet looks for­ward to our health­care growth in Trinidad and To­ba­go in sup­port of our 500+ pre­mier clients,” said Christo­pher Rogers, chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer of Carenet Health.

Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon not­ed, “The Gov­ern­ment wel­comes Carenet to our shores, the first to be ap­proved in an al­ready sig­nif­i­cant pipeline of in­vestors. The SEZ Au­thor­i­ty (SEZA)is al­so to be com­mend­ed for en­sur­ing that the ap­proval was done in keep­ing with the set time­lines laid out in the leg­is­lat­ed reg­u­la­tions. We look for­ward to the con­tin­ued ben­e­fits to our coun­try; our pri­or­i­ty be­ing job cre­ation.”

The TT­TI­PA high­light­ed that the coun­try’s SEZ regime, which was ful­ly pro­claimed in Ju­ly, is ex­pect­ed to boost lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur­ship and at­tract for­eign in­vest­ment, as the in­cen­tives are tar­get­ed at new in­vest­ment projects.  

“The in­cen­tives in­clude a 15 per cent cor­po­ra­tion tax, a gen­er­ous port­fo­lio of con­ces­sions and ex­emp­tions on im­port du­ties and VAT, as well as oth­er tax­es such as prop­er­ty tax and stamp du­ty.”

This in­vest­ment in BPO (Busi­ness Process Out­sourc­ing) was fa­cil­i­tat­ed over a pe­ri­od of 10 months by In­vesTT, which is now part of the re­cent­ly es­tab­lished Trinidad and To­ba­go Trade and In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency. The agency out­lined that it played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the growth of this coun­try’s BPO sec­tor, from the se­cur­ing of the first for­eign BPO in­vest­ment in 2015 to the es­tab­lish­ment of nine com­pa­nies to­day and the cre­ation of 2,500 jobs.  

The sec­tor is set for fur­ther growth this fis­cal year as ex­ist­ing BPOs have ex­pan­sion plans that are pro­ject­ed to dou­ble the cur­rent em­ploy­ment fig­ure,” the re­lease added.

The SEZ Act, 2022, was ful­ly pro­claimed on Ju­ly 5, 2024. The Act was par­tial­ly pro­claimed on Jan­u­ary 31, 2022, to al­low for the es­tab­lish­ment of the T&T SEZA; the ap­point­ment of a board for the au­thor­i­ty; and the staffing and set­ting up of the SEZA.

The full procla­ma­tion of the SEZ Act re­peals the Free Zones Act, brings in­to ef­fect the SEZ Reg­u­la­tions, 2023, and al­lows any pub­lic, pri­vate or pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship to ap­ply to the SEZA for spe­cif­ic li­cences in which to func­tion in the new regime.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored