An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has wel­comed sev­er­al of the Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 bud­get mea­sures aimed at im­prov­ing trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and busi­ness com­pet­i­tive­ness, but has cau­tioned that new fi­nanc­ing terms un­der the Ex­port-Im­port Bank (Ex­im­bank) must not dis­ad­van­tage small and medi­um-sized man­u­fac­tur­ers.

In de­liv­er­ing the 2026 bud­get yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, said the Ex­im­bank will re­turn to its prop­er man­date of sup­port­ing ex­porters through for­eign-cur­ren­cy loans.

He said for the first year, re­pay­ments will be made in TT dol­lars, but af­ter the first year in the cur­ren­cy of the loan. Trans­par­ent el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria and pub­lic re­port­ing will en­sure fair­ness, es­pe­cial­ly for SMEs.

While en­dors­ing the over­all di­rec­tion of the fis­cal pack­age, the TTMA warned that the Ex­im­bank’s re­struc­tured fa­cil­i­ty tran­si­tion­ing from a more con­ces­sion­al to a loan-based mod­el could pose chal­lenges for small­er firms if terms such as in­ter­est rates, col­lat­er­al, and el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria are not eq­ui­table.

The TTMA stressed that while Ex­im­bank re­mains “a vi­tal part­ner for the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor in smooth­ing ac­cess to for­eign ex­change and trade fi­nanc­ing,” trans­paren­cy will be key to main­tain­ing con­fi­dence. It called for “full dis­clo­sure of the terms, in­ter­est rates, tenor, col­lat­er­al re­quire­ments, el­i­gi­bil­i­ty thresh­olds and risk mit­i­ga­tion” to en­sure lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers are not un­du­ly bur­dened by pro­hib­i­tive con­di­tions.

The As­so­ci­a­tion high­light­ed that since 2020, man­u­fac­tur­ers have re­turned 40 per cent of their Ex­im­bank al­lo­ca­tions, fos­ter­ing an 18 per cent year-on-year in­crease in ex­ports. It urged the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Bank to work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to fa­cil­i­tate raw ma­te­r­i­al pur­chas­ing on a case-by-case ba­sis, ac­knowl­edg­ing that SMEs are at dif­fer­ent stages of their ex­port­ing jour­ney.

Equal­ly im­por­tant to the sec­tor’s com­pet­i­tive­ness, TTMA said, is im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness. Through its own Ease of Do­ing Busi­ness Unit, the As­so­ci­a­tion has con­sis­tent­ly flagged bar­ri­ers such as VAT re­fund de­lays, cus­toms in­ef­fi­cien­cies, and out­dat­ed sys­tems. In that con­text, it wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s an­nounce­ment that elec­tron­ic pay­ments across pub­lic agen­cies will be im­ple­ment­ed by the end of 2025, along­side the up­grade of the ASY­CU­DA sys­tem and the launch of a Na­tion­al Dig­i­tal Pay­ment Sys­tem.