The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try (MTI) has said that in­vest­ments in the lo­cal econ­o­my to the tune of rough­ly $1 bil­lion cre­at­ed over 3,500 jobs in Fis­cal 2022, and that the coun­try re­mains at­trac­tive to di­rect for­eign in­vest­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial state­ment from the Min­istry, this pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment comes against a back­drop of glob­al dis­rup­tions such as the COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic and the Rus­sia/Ukraine war, both of which con­tributed to slow­down of in­ter­na­tion­al for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment (FDI) flows, with the steep­est de­cline be­ing among de­vel­op­ing economies, such as Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“For Fis­cal 2022, the Gov­ern­ment record­ed just over TT$1 bil­lion in in­vest­ments that be­came op­er­a­tional, cre­at­ing as many as 1,746 new jobs,” the Trade Min­istry re­ports.

It added: “To­tal com­mit­ted in­vest­ments by the pri­vate sec­tor in var­i­ous projects to­talled an ad­di­tion­al TT$646 mil­lion, of which In­vesTT was re­spon­si­ble for TT$486.3 mil­lion, which will cre­ate a fur­ther 1,768 new jobs when op­er­a­tional.”

The Min­istry ob­serves that a re­cent re­port by the Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC) high­light­ed For­eign Di­rect In­vest­ment (FDI) trends in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go over the pe­ri­od 2020 to 2021.  In that re­port, ECLAC not­ed that T&T post­ed a neg­a­tive FDI in­flow in 2021, which was large­ly due to out­flows in the hy­dro­car­bon sec­tor. These out­flows usu­al­ly in­clude the repa­tri­a­tion of funds, the Trade and In­dus­try Min­istry said.

How­ev­er, MTI re­ports that de­spite the glob­al chal­lenges, there were sig­nif­i­cant non-en­er­gy sec­tor in­vest­ments in­to the do­mes­tic econ­o­my, fa­cil­i­tat­ed pri­mar­i­ly by In­vesTT.

“The na­tion­al in­vest­ment pro­mo­tion agency, In­vesTT Lim­it­ed, di­rect­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed FDI val­ued at TT$163.3 mil­lion and TT$140.8 mil­lion in fis­cal 2021 and 2022 re­spec­tive­ly. These val­ues ex­clude FDI that was made in­de­pen­dent­ly, as well as do­mes­tic in­vest­ments, which re­main quite ro­bust,” MTI said.

The Min­istry added: “To­tal in­vest­ments in Trinidad and To­ba­go—which in­clude do­mes­tic in­vest­ments and FDI—have grown sub­stan­tial­ly with com­pa­nies such as John Dick­in­son and Com­pa­ny West In­dies Lim­it­ed, West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, Blue Wa­ters Lim­it­ed, HAD­CO Lim­it­ed, the NU­TRIM­IX Group of Com­pa­nies and Massy Stores, among the some of the ma­jor do­mes­tic in­vestors.”

In its re­lease, the Trade Min­istry al­so lists the most re­cent non-en­er­gy sec­tor FDI fa­cil­i­tat­ed by In­vesTT, name­ly:

■   Four BPO (Busi­ness Process Out­sourc­ing) com­pa­nies – Teleper­for­mance; Cus­tomer Ac­qui­si­tion Group; Bill Gosling Out­sourc­ing; and iQor, which es­tab­lished its 3rd op­er­a­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

■   Two Chi­nese man­u­fac­tur­ing firms – Sum­mit Lug­gage Com­pa­ny and Do­care Quanzhou Hy­gien­ic Prod­uct Com­pa­ny con­firmed op­er­a­tions to be es­tab­lished at the Phoenix Park In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

With re­gard to en­er­gy sec­tor in­vest­ments, the Min­istry points to the re­cent an­nounce­ment by bpTT Pres­i­dent David Camp­bell that the com­pa­ny in­vest­ed US$3.4 bil­lion ( in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­tween 2018 and 2022.  The bpTT pres­i­dent al­so con­firmed the com­pa­ny’s in­ten­tion to in­vest a fur­ther US$800 mil­lion (TT$5.44 bil­lion) in 2023.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go, through the ef­forts of the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try and in­vesTT, con­tin­ues to be an at­trac­tive lo­ca­tion for for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment due to our coun­try’s open in­vest­ment cli­mate, low busi­ness op­er­at­ing costs, wide rang­ing mar­ket ac­cess, ro­bust in­fra­struc­ture, and tal­ent­ed pool of labour.