Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo is dis­miss­ing calls to de­val­ue the Trinidad and To­ba­go dol­lar, warn­ing that such a move would do more harm than good to the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

His com­ment to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day came in re­sponse to busi­ness­man Emile Elias, who re­cent­ly ar­gued that ad­just­ing the ex­change rate from TT$6.79 to US$1, to TT$9TT to US$1, could bring eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits.

Tan­coo, how­ev­er, coun­tered that de­val­u­a­tion un­der the coun­try’s cur­rent eco­nom­ic struc­ture would wors­en in­fla­tion and sti­fle growth.

“Re­gard­ing de­val­u­a­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go dol­lar, the fun­da­men­tal ques­tion is whether such a move would tru­ly ben­e­fit our coun­try,” the min­is­ter said.

He added, “It is my view that de­val­u­a­tion can­not work to stim­u­late the T&T econ­o­my in its cur­rent struc­ture.”

He ex­plained that while weak­er cur­ren­cies typ­i­cal­ly make ex­ports more com­pet­i­tive, T&T’s sit­u­a­tion is dif­fer­ent. En­er­gy ex­ports dom­i­nate the coun­try’s trade but are bound by pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty and long-term con­tracts, lim­it­ing any im­me­di­ate gains.

Mean­while, he said non-en­er­gy ex­ports re­main small, heav­i­ly re­liant on im­port­ed in­puts that would be­come more ex­pen­sive un­der de­val­u­a­tion.

“A de­val­u­a­tion would pri­mar­i­ly raise the cost of im­port­ed in­puts, dri­ving up the cost struc­ture of non-en­er­gy ex­ports,” Tan­coo warned.

“This means they would not be­come more com­pet­i­tive in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. This has the po­ten­tial to dec­i­mate a large num­ber of small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es at a time when we need more pro­duc­tive ac­tiv­i­ty from them.”

He al­so point­ed out that cit­i­zens would face high­er prices for im­port­ed goods, feed­ing di­rect­ly in­to do­mes­tic in­fla­tion. Larg­er com­pa­nies with ac­cess to for­eign ex­change re­serves abroad might ben­e­fit, he not­ed, but SMEs, al­ready strug­gling, would find sur­vival more dif­fi­cult.

In­stead of de­val­u­a­tion, Tan­coo out­lined a strat­e­gy fo­cused on en­hanc­ing pro­duc­tive ef­fi­cien­cy and re­duc­ing re­liance on im­ports. Ac­cord­ing to him, this in­cludes boost­ing lo­cal food pro­duc­tion to re­duce for­eign ex­change out­flows, strength­en­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing through tar­get­ed cred­it and ex­port pro­mo­tion, and ex­pand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in the ser­vices sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly tourism, lo­gis­tics, and busi­ness process out­sourc­ing.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, de­val­u­a­tion would do lit­tle more than trig­ger in­fla­tion in the lo­cal econ­o­my,” he stressed.

“Our ap­proach is to build re­silience: im­prov­ing pro­duc­tive ef­fi­cien­cy, stim­u­lat­ing do­mes­tic ac­tiv­i­ty to sub­sti­tute im­ports, and ex­pand­ing ex­port ca­pac­i­ty. This is how we will gen­er­ate not on­ly for­eign ex­change earn­ings, but al­so the broad­er mul­ti­pli­er ef­fects need­ed for sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth.”

Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, and De­vel­op­ment Kennedy Swarats­ingh al­so dis­missed sug­ges­tions that Gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing a de­val­u­a­tion of the TT dol­lar.

“No, no, there is no such thing as is con­tem­plat­ed,” the min­is­ter stressed.

While he did not pro­vide a date for the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2025/2026 na­tion­al bud­get, Swarats­ingh as­sured that Gov­ern­ment is ful­ly en­gaged in prepa­ra­tions.

“With open eyes. Min­is­ter Tan­coo is re­al­ly, re­al­ly ag­gres­sive­ly hard at work,” he said.

At the same time, Min­is­ter Swarats­ingh ac­knowl­edged that con­cerns per­sist over ac­cess to for­eign ex­change, a long-stand­ing chal­lenge for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and wider econ­o­my.

“I am sure the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, like many of us, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, will be con­cerned as to the ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of forex to or­di­nary cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and that is why I think he would have sug­gest­ed that the dis­tri­b­u­tion of forex has to al­so be bal­anced, not just for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty or oth­er sec­tors and that or­di­nary cit­i­zens should have ac­cess to the kind of forex need­ed, whether it be for ed­u­ca­tion, for leisure, for trav­el.”

He al­so chal­lenged Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai’s as­ser­tion that there was no ev­i­dence of a for­eign ex­change car­tel, say­ing the lack of proof does not guar­an­tee one does not ex­ist. 

Mean­while, Tan­coo yes­ter­day sought in­for­ma­tion from the pub­lic on their ex­pe­ri­ence ac­cess­ing forex. In a so­cial me­dia post he wrote: “Sim­ple ques­tion to USERS of For­eign Ex­change: Do you think the sys­tem of al­lo­ca­tion is rigged for a few to ben­e­fit?”