The Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) says the re­cent clo­sure of some busi­ness­es re­flects a long-stand­ing eco­nom­ic de­cline in Trinidad and To­ba­go and not a sud­den down­turn.

In a press re­lease, DO­MA said pub­lic dis­cus­sion on the is­sue has be­come side­tracked by po­lit­i­cal ex­changes, even as the trend of clo­sures has de­vel­oped over sev­er­al years.

Ac­cord­ing to the As­so­ci­a­tion, the clo­sures point to a re­duc­tion in eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and a de­cline in con­sumer and in­vestor con­fi­dence, which has in­ten­si­fied over the past three to five years.

“Our eco­nom­ic de­cline is re­al, and it is se­ri­ous but is not new,” the As­so­ci­a­tion said.

The busi­ness group said the sit­u­a­tion should not cause pan­ic but in­stead present an op­por­tu­ni­ty for mean­ing­ful di­a­logue among key stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the Gov­ern­ment and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

It urged the Gov­ern­ment to open com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels at the high­est lev­els to fa­cil­i­tate dis­cus­sion and de­ci­sion-mak­ing aimed at im­prov­ing in­vestor con­fi­dence.

The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so crit­i­cised the lev­el of en­gage­ment un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, say­ing in­ter­ac­tion at top de­ci­sion-mak­ing lev­els was lim­it­ed.

“Re­quests for meet­ings were, on most oc­ca­sions, unan­swered and very lim­it­ed. That should change if we are to im­prove the as­sur­ances nec­es­sary to stim­u­late in­vest­ment,” DO­MA said.

The As­so­ci­a­tion added that the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment should not be blamed for clo­sures with­in the past year, as such de­ci­sions typ­i­cal­ly fol­low ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods of analy­sis be­fore be­ing an­nounced.

It ac­knowl­edged that some re­cent pol­i­cy changes may have con­tributed to a neg­a­tive eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment but said the broad­er trend has been ev­i­dent for at least four to five years.

DO­MA called on the Gov­ern­ment to fa­cil­i­tate high-lev­el di­a­logue with ma­jor in­vestors, de­scrib­ing such en­gage­ment as a nec­es­sary con­fi­dence-build­ing mea­sure.

“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. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is a pos­i­tive con­trib­u­tor to con­fi­dence,” the DO­MA re­lease stat­ed.

It al­so not­ed that some busi­ness clo­sures stem from strate­gic de­ci­sions rather than eco­nom­ic dis­tress, with some op­er­a­tors shift­ing fo­cus to dis­tri­b­u­tion and clos­ing re­tail out­lets.

The As­so­ci­a­tion point­ed to the re­cent clo­sure of a ma­jor shoe store in down­town Port of Spain, not­ing that the com­pa­ny in­tends to keep nine oth­er out­lets open. It said this sug­gests is­sues spe­cif­ic to the cap­i­tal city.

It added that calls for a na­tion­al di­a­logue on chal­lenges af­fect­ing Port of Spain were made to lo­cal au­thor­i­ties more than two years ago but were not adopt­ed.

The As­so­ci­a­tion said this lack of en­gage­ment has con­tributed to de­clin­ing con­fi­dence in the city cen­tre.

It ex­pressed hope that im­proved col­lab­o­ra­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the Gov­ern­ment, ma­jor eco­nom­ic stake­hold­ers and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty will be­gin soon.

“Blam­ing the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment for re­cent busi­ness clo­sures seems to be in­nu­en­do that has been in­flu­enced by po­lit­i­cal pos­ture. We need di­a­logue de­void of up­man­ship that recog­nis­es trends that have per­sist­ed for a long time, and which can be cor­rect­ed,” DO­MA said.

It added that de­spite cur­rent chal­lenges, co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts among stake­hold­ers can sta­bilise the econ­o­my.

“The eco­nom­ic ‘seas’ are rough and un­pre­dictable but if ‘all hands are on deck’ we are con­fi­dent that Trinidad and To­ba­go can main­tain eco­nom­ic equi­lib­ri­um,” DO­MA said.