The sign­ing of a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing be­tween the T&T Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion (TTSEC) and the Cen­tral Bank is an in­valu­able step for­ward to en­sure the agency is able to dis­charge its man­date and be an ef­fec­tive reg­u­la­tor of the cap­i­tal mar­ket, Trade Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath said on Mon­day.At the time he was speak­ing at the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the MOU for the ex­change of in­for­ma­tion and co-op­er­a­tion con­sul­ta­tion be­tween the two en­ti­ties at Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.

"This MOU al­lows the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion to con­sult, co-op­er­ate with and pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, any oth­er reg­u­la­to­ry agency or oth­er en­ti­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go to min­imise du­pli­ca­tion of ef­fort and to max­imise the pro­tec­tion of in­vestors," said Bharath who was act­ing as MIn­is­ter of Fi­nance.

"From a more strate­gic con­text, I be­lieve this MOU com­mits key play­ers in the lo­cal fi­nan­cial sec­tor to work to­geth­er more close­ly to­wards a com­mon goal–the growth, pro­tec­tion and de­vel­op­ment of our fi­nan­cial sec­tor, which is a pri­or­i­ty for the min­istry and the Gov­ern­ment."

The min­is­ter added: "Trinidad and To­ba­go's econ­o­my con­tin­ues to move in the right di­rec­tion, and, ac­cord­ing to the re­cent IMF Ar­ti­cle IV as­sess­ment, our lo­cal fi­nan­cial sec­tor ap­pears sound with com­mer­cial banks be­ing liq­uid, prof­itable, and well cap­i­tal­ized. It is there­fore im­per­a­tive that Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues its ef­forts aimed at en­sur­ing growth and sta­bil­i­ty of the lo­cal fi­nan­cial sec­tor, pro­motes fi­nan­cial de­vel­op­ment at all lev­els, and pro­tects the econ­o­my against down­side risks and ex­ist­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in some sec­tors."

Bharath said that "Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to the progress of var­i­ous fi­nan­cial sec­tor re­forms."

"At present, in­sur­ance leg­is­la­tion is be­ing pre­pared to mod­ern­ize its ap­proach to in­sur­ance reg­u­la­tion and su­per­vi­sion. The pro­posed In­sur­ance Bill will strength­en cor­po­rate gov­er­nance of in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, and es­tab­lish more ef­fec­tive pro­tec­tion of pol­i­cy­hold­ers. It will ad­dress fun­da­men­tal pru­den­tial de­fi­cien­cies, and will in­clude im­por­tant re­quire­ments for in­sur­ance com­pa­nies which are con­sis­tent with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice.

Oth­er reg­u­la­to­ry re­forms re­lat­ing to the cred­it union sec­tor and pri­vate pen­sion funds are cur­rent­ly un­der prepa­ra­tion as the re­spec­tive pieces of leg­is­la­tion are sub­stan­tial­ly com­plete."He chal­lenged guests at the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny to co-op­er­ate, not just with in­for­ma­tion as spec­i­fied in Sec­tion 19 of the Act, but al­so with ex­per­tise, best prac­tices, and pro­duc­tive re­la­tion­ships for the com­mon pur­pose of pro­tect­ing in­vestors inT&T and pro­mot­ing a fi­nan­cial sys­tem that pro­vides a sol­id foun­da­tion for strong sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth.