RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

While the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) main­tains that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic de­cline has been years in the mak­ing, busi­ness­man and Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Clint Ar­joon says ris­ing tax­a­tion and high crime have cre­at­ed an un­bear­able en­vi­ron­ment, forc­ing him to shut down four of his busi­ness­es.

Ar­joon said that, de­spite ex­pec­ta­tions fol­low­ing the na­tion­al bud­get, many busi­ness op­er­a­tors have seen no mean­ing­ful re­lief.

“I think that since the bud­get was read and where we were sup­posed to ben­e­fit in some way or the oth­er, that has not hap­pened,” he said.

He point­ed to in­creased tax­es on al­co­hol and high­er bar li­cence fees as ma­jor con­trib­u­tors to de­clin­ing sales and busi­ness clo­sures.

“The in­crease in al­co­hol tax­es has cre­at­ed a damp­en­ing ef­fect on the gen­er­al pub­lic pa­tro­n­is­ing bars and su­per­mar­kets… With the in­crease in the bar li­cence, a num­ber of bars have closed their doors, in­clud­ing mine, be­cause of the high lev­el of tax­a­tion,” Ar­joon said.

He added that broad­er fis­cal mea­sures, in­clud­ing high­er tar­iffs, VAT and ris­ing en­er­gy costs, have trig­gered a rip­ple ef­fect across in­dus­tries.

“All around, you have seen an in­crease in tax­a­tion that re­quires more out­lay, and that has def­i­nite­ly af­fect­ed busi­ness­es from ex­pand­ing,” he said.

Be­yond tax­a­tion, Ar­joon said crime has had a dev­as­tat­ing per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al im­pact. Last month, his nephew, Shan­don Ar­joon, was gunned down in Oropouche, an in­ci­dent that has shak­en his con­fi­dence in the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty en­vi­ron­ment.

“Apart from that, I my­self, be­cause of crime, have suf­fered a re­cent loss, and be­cause of that, I am ac­tu­al­ly clos­ing four of my busi­ness­es… I am not see­ing the com­fort be­ing cre­at­ed by the Gov­ern­ment for cit­i­zens to feel safe any­more,” he said.

How­ev­er, DO­MA in­sists that while re­cent poli­cies may have added pres­sure, the un­der­ly­ing is­sues pre­date cur­rent de­vel­op­ments. In a state­ment, the as­so­ci­a­tion said busi­ness clo­sures re­flect a long-stand­ing trend.

“Our eco­nom­ic de­cline is re­al, and it is se­ri­ous, but it is not new,” the group said, not­ing that re­duced eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and falling con­sumer and in­vestor con­fi­dence have been ev­i­dent over the past three to five years.

DO­MA ar­gued that clo­sures of­ten fol­low pro­longed in­ter­nal as­sess­ments by busi­ness­es and should not be viewed as sud­den re­ac­tions to re­cent events. It al­so called for greater en­gage­ment be­tween the State and the pri­vate sec­tor to re­store con­fi­dence.

“We feel very strong­ly that the ini­tia­tive of invit­ing ma­jor in­vestor di­a­logue is, in it­self, a con­fi­dence boost­er des­per­ate­ly need­ed to im­prove the cur­rent chill in our eco­nom­ic cli­mate,” the as­so­ci­a­tion said.

This view was echoed by pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce, Ki­ran Singh, who said the down­turn has been grad­ual, point­ing to lin­ger­ing ef­fects from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“The slow­down in eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty has been go­ing on for sev­er­al years. It start­ed dur­ing the COVID pe­ri­od… and some busi­ness­es have still not re­cov­ered,” Singh said.

He ac­knowl­edged that many small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es are strug­gling but ex­pressed cau­tious op­ti­mism about the fu­ture.

“What we re­main op­ti­mistic about is that when the gas fields start to be­come mon­e­tised next year, we will see eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery. We just have to find ways to sur­vive 2026,” he said.

Singh added that busi­ness­es must adapt to sur­vive cur­rent chal­lenges, even as ex­ter­nal pres­sures such as de­clin­ing for­eign ex­change and en­er­gy rev­enues con­tin­ue to strain the econ­o­my.

“The suc­cess of any busi­ness­man is when you are able to adapt to chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions, and un­for­tu­nate­ly, we are in a very chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment right now,” he said.

Pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer at the Fyz­abad Cham­ber, Kavi­ta Dabiedeen, said busi­ness clo­sures be­gan years ago, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing the shut­down of Petrotrin, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in the re­gion.

She said lim­it­ed for­eign ex­change, re­duced prod­uct va­ri­ety, and a shift to­ward cheap­er im­ports are signs of a strug­gling re­tail sec­tor, along­side the grow­ing im­pact of tech­nol­o­gy on in­dus­tries such as graph­ic de­sign.

The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is call­ing for in­creased di­a­logue to boost in­vestor con­fi­dence as the mid-year re­view ap­proach­es.