Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said that Trinidad and To­ba­go is set to be­come a dig­i­tal econ­o­my.
In de­liv­er­ing his Bud­get Pre­sen­ta­tion for fis­cal 2020-2021, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter shared some in­sights in­to how this bud­get will dri­ve the trans­for­ma­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to a dig­i­tal econ­o­my.
This con­cept has been a pri­or­i­ty for the Row­ley Ad­min­is­tra­tion and was pro­mot­ed heav­i­ly dur­ing the Au­gust elec­tions.

The min­is­ter not­ed that gov­ern­ment is fo­cused on e-gov­er­nance, e-bank­ing and e-com­merce, among the many sys­tems to help de­vel­op tech­nol­o­gy in Trinidad and To­ba­go.
Most of the plan­ning and im­ple­ment­ing will be chan­nelled through the new Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion.

“A ful­ly dig­i­tal Trinidad and To­ba­go is es­sen­tial to the growth and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the econ­o­my,” he said. “In this con­text, the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion has been charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of di­rect­ing the nec­es­sary changes need­ed to ac­com­plish this ob­jec­tive. It has been man­dat­ed to en­sure high-speed broad­band ac­cess, in­clud­ing req­ui­site ICT in­fra­struc­ture, is avail­able for all,” Min­is­ter Im­bert said.

He con­tends the min­istry al­so has been man­dat­ed to cre­ate an elec­tron­ic pop­u­la­tion reg­is­ter or E-iden­ti­ty for every cit­i­zen, to fa­cil­i­tate the da­ta trans­mis­sion to all agen­cies. He said this is ex­pect­ed to stream­line process­es, as well as iden­ti­fy and elim­i­nate waste and du­pli­ca­tion and in­ef­fi­cien­cies.
The fis­cal pack­age al­so of­fered in­cen­tives for com­pa­nies in­vest­ing in tech­nol­o­gy with the es­tab­lish­ment of a Tech In­vest­ment Fund and a spe­cial pur­pose Tech Pro­mo­tions and De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny.

“A Tech In­vest­ment Fund and a Tech Pro­mo­tions and De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny will be es­tab­lished. The Fund will be avail­able to vi­able tech start-ups and new tech busi­ness­es. It is ex­pect­ed that the new dig­i­tal econ­o­my will trans­form all in­dus­tries and be vast­ly dif­fer­ent from the old econ­o­my,” ex­plained the Fi­nance Min­is­ter.

He added: “The al­lowance is set at 150 per cent to the cap of $3 mil­lion. A tax al­lowance will be giv­en to busi­ness­es en­gag­ing in tech­nol­o­gy so­lu­tions and dig­i­tal­iza­tion. In­cen­tives will go to busi­ness­es cre­at­ing em­ploy­ment in tech­nol­o­gy in­dus­tries.”