Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert Gov­ern­ment is not ad­just­ing the for­eign ex­change rate in or­der to keep the in­fla­tion rate down.

Speak­ing at the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) Post-Bud­get Dis­cus­sion at the Hy­att Re­gency ho­tel in Port-of-Spain on Tues­dayy, Im­bert said as soon as the for­eign ex­change rate is ad­just­ed, there will be de­mands from the labour sec­tor and it will be dif­fi­cult to op­pose those de­mands.

“If you de­val­ue the cur­ren­cy and let it move by 50 or 30 per cent, or what­ev­er num­ber it is, then the labour unions will say al­right, the cost of liv­ing has gone up and in­fla­tion just hit 20 per cent, be­cause you did that and now, we want a 20 per cent in­crease. So it al­so helps with deal­ing with col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing. So, at this time, this Gov­ern­ment is not go­ing to ad­just the ex­change rate,” Im­bert ex­plained. (See page 15)

Fur­ther­more, Im­bert said there was a flip side, as when the forex rate is not ad­just­ed, there is an ap­petite for for­eign goods con­sump­tion.

“There is an ap­petite to buy for­eign goods, there is a de­mand for for­eign ex­change, and you have short­ages. I met with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dus­try yes­ter­day and I asked them to give me some ideas and sug­ges­tions on how we deal with the forex prob­lem we have. I met with the com­mer­cial banks, and I asked them for some ideas. I have been giv­en some ex­cel­lent pro­pos­als and I have al­so asked the Ex­im­Bank to give me some ideas as well,” he said.

He said from what is be­fore him, he is as­sur­ing the pop­u­la­tion that a so­lu­tion will be ar­rived at.

Touch­ing on the Ex­im­Bank pol­i­cy, the min­is­ter said it pro­vides for­eign ex­change to el­i­gi­ble ex­port man­u­fac­tur­ers un­der an agree­ment that those clients would repa­tri­ate all funds ob­tained from the ex­port­ing ac­tiv­i­ty utilised by the fa­cil­i­ty.

Im­bert said the Ex­im­Bank has al­so been man­ag­ing the im­ports of es­sen­tial items through the Spe­cial Im­port Forex Win­dow.

“In par­tic­u­lar, in 2024, we will cre­ate new arrange­ments for pref­er­en­tial ac­cess to for­eign ex­change for qual­i­fied small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es, and in this re­gard, I have al­ready re­ceived very use­ful rec­om­men­da­tions from the Cham­ber of Com­merce, the com­mer­cial banks, and the Ex­im­Bank,” he re­vealed.—An­drea Perez-Sobers

As it per­tains to the repa­tri­a­tion of forex, Im­bert said that he in­tends to de­vel­op strate­gies to in­crease the repa­tri­a­tion of for­eign ex­change earned over­seas by lo­cal and for­eign busi­ness­es op­er­at­ing in T&T, as this is key to an in­creased lo­cal sup­ply of for­eign ex­change.