Government is moving very aggressively to operationalise its International Financial Centre with the hope of major Chinese banks establishing its headquarters in T&T, says Finance Minister Colm Imbert.
He was speaking at yesterday's annual post-Budget discussion hosted by the T&T Chamber of Commerce.
"We will be making overtures to these Chinese banks to set up their regional headquarters here as there is tremendous opportunity," Imbert said.
And in the midst of painting a gloomy picture of T&T's economy during his 2015/2016 Budget presentation, Imbert said his Government would move full speed ahead with the rapid rail project, once the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) gave the nod.
He added: "We are going full speed ahead with this project but we want to make sure we are not accused of being reckless and getting involved in a vanity project.
"We are convinced that our studies and figures are accurate and we simply want an international agency to confirm and validate our numbers.
"Our target is to initiate commencement of this project by the end of September 2016. We are giving ourselves a year to make sure all the costings are correct, the approach is correct and to secure a contractor."
He said there were two reasons why Government was approaching the IDB.
"They have offered to finance this project and the IDB does not finance projects of this nature unless they are satisfied that it makes sense.
"We are not going to fund the project in the way the Pt Fortin Highway project has been funded which had been funded out of the Consolidated Fund... out of general revenues... and that is why that project is always in trouble because there is just isn't enough money," Imbert said.
He said funding for the highway should have been raised either internationally or locally.
During the question and answer segment the issue of taxing online shopping was also raised. However, Imbert said that was a complicated matter which needed time to be worked out before implementation.
"I had many proposals that we should put a tax to online shopping but I did not put a tax, the reason being how would you monitor and regulate such a situation?
"How do you know when somebody has a charge on their credit card whether that was a purchase they made while abroad or at home in front their computer. There are some countries that attempted this but it is incredibly complex," Imbert added.
Regarding the Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses (GATE) Programme Imbert said since it was implemented some 11 years ago, the participation rate in higher education had moved from 11 per cent to 60 per cent.
"We are now at the level of developed countries. The time has come now to rationalise all of this so we need to refocus and repurpose our thrust into education and higher education," Imbert said.
He said Government also intended to have a national dialogue on the future of GATE.
No jobs
Scores of university graduates, particularly in the oil and gas sector, are unable to find jobs as oil companies across the world have cancelled their graduate employment programmes.
Imbert said: "I was really taken by the plight of people who are graduating in the oil and gas field... petroleum engineers... geoscientists... all of the oil companies have cancelled their graduate employment programmes... not just in T&T but all over the world.
"For the first time in a number of years we have a number of unemployed petroleum engineers and petroleum geoscientists who are unemployed.
"So one of the stimuli for creating the graduate employment programme was to deal with all of these unemployed university graduates, some of whom might even be national scholarship winners who simply cannot get a job. We would start the process by employing 500 of these graduates," Imbert added.
On the country's assets he said T&T had enough to carry it through 2017, including that of the Republic Back shares which, he said, Government intended to dispose of within the next two years.
He said: "I thought it would have been too much for the system if we attempted to dispose of the Republic Bank shares in 2015 and we would be having comprehensive discussions with the board of Republic Bank, the entire banking sector and financial institutions.
"There are two alternatives with the disposal of the shares. One is to sell it to a foreign investor.which is attracting a lot of negative attention and to sell it on the local market.
"So we are going to have in-depth consultation to work out the best way of disposing with the shares. That will help us with our budgetary support for 2017 but after that the cupboard would be empty," Imbert said.