GEISHA KOW­LESSAR ALON­ZO

With the Gov­ern­ment ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er its 2027 fis­cal pack­age in the com­ing weeks, rec­om­men­da­tions from the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T (Am­cham T&T) is propos­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture In­vest­ment Fund ca­pa­ble of mo­bil­is­ing be­tween US$500 mil­lion and US$1 bil­lion in pri­vate sec­tor cap­i­tal for crit­i­cal projects.

The cham­ber said such a ve­hi­cle would stim­u­late growth and di­rect fi­nanc­ing to­wards ports, air­ports, hous­ing, lo­gis­tics and dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture while re­duc­ing pres­sure on the pub­lic purse.

It added this mech­a­nism would:

* Gen­er­ate sta­ble, risk-mit­i­gat­ed re­turns for in­vestors (min­i­mum three to five per cent an­nu­al­ly through Gov­ern­ment-backed par­tial risk guar­an­tees ie, Gov­ern­ment guar­an­tees the in­ter­est);

* Sup­port na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties in ar­eas such as air­ports, ports, toll roads, af­ford­able hous­ing, lo­gis­tics hubs, and dig­i­tal/green in­fra­struc­ture;

* Main­tain fis­cal pru­dence by mo­bil­is­ing pri­vate cap­i­tal rather than adding to pub­lic debt; and

* En­sure trans­par­ent gov­er­nance through a pri­vate sec­tor–led steer­ing com­mit­tee, with par­tic­i­pa­tion from Gov­ern­ment and over­sight by rep­utable in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment in­sti­tu­tions (IDB, World Bank/IFC, CAF).

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so ad­vo­cat­ed greater sup­port for ven­ture cap­i­tal and pri­vate eq­ui­ty in­vest­ments, ex­pan­sion of the tax base through stricter en­force­ment of ex­ist­ing tax laws and the ac­cel­er­a­tion of ap­provals for projects await­ing state land trans­fers, leas­es and per­mits.

It fur­ther urged gov­ern­ment to set­tle out­stand­ing debts owed to pri­vate sec­tor sup­pli­ers, ar­gu­ing that de­layed pay­ments are un­der­min­ing com­pa­ny cash flows and re­duc­ing eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

“It is im­por­tant that Gov­ern­ment set­tles its debt to pri­vate com­pa­nies. Many com­pa­nies have grant­ed Gov­ern­ment cred­it terms for goods and ser­vices that are past due. It is im­por­tant that Gov­ern­ment pays its oblig­a­tions as many com­pa­nies are strug­gling to ob­tain pos­i­tive cash flow, which re­duces their tax con­tri­bu­tions,” it added.

Ma­jor­i­ty sur­veyed wor­ried about eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty

The pri­vate sec­tor group al­so called on pol­i­cy­mak­ers to place crime re­duc­tion, for­eign ex­change ac­cess, pub­lic sec­tor re­form and eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion at the cen­tre of the na­tion­al bud­get agen­da, warn­ing that per­sis­tent struc­tur­al chal­lenges con­tin­ue to un­der­mine busi­ness con­fi­dence, in­vest­ment and com­pet­i­tive­ness.

Rep­re­sent­ing more than 300 com­pa­nies across the econ­o­my, Am­cham T&T out­lined that the up­com­ing bud­get pro­vides a crit­i­cal op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress long­stand­ing con­straints fac­ing busi­ness­es while lay­ing the foun­da­tion for stronger eco­nom­ic growth and re­silience.

In its 39-page sub­mis­sion, the busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tion ex­plained the rec­om­men­da­tions were in­formed by mem­ber sur­veys and con­sul­ta­tions which re­vealed that 83.3 per cent of re­spon­dents iden­ti­fied eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty as their most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge dur­ing the past year, while 66.7 per cent point­ed to dif­fi­cul­ties ac­cess­ing for­eign ex­change. Ris­ing op­er­at­ing costs, crime and se­cu­ri­ty threats, and pol­i­cy un­pre­dictabil­i­ty were al­so cit­ed among the ma­jor con­cerns af­fect­ing busi­ness­es.

Ac­cess to for­eign ex­change con­tin­ues to be one of the most press­ing con­cerns raised by mem­bers.

More than two-thirds of re­spon­dents iden­ti­fied forex avail­abil­i­ty as a sig­nif­i­cant busi­ness chal­lenge, while many al­so point­ed to de­lays in Gov­ern­ment ap­provals, tax re­funds and cus­toms pro­ce­dures as fac­tors lim­it­ing ex­pan­sion and com­pet­i­tive­ness.

Crime tops pri­vate sec­tor con­cerns

Crime emerged as one of the most sig­nif­i­cant is­sues iden­ti­fied by mem­bers, with busi­ness­es rank­ing crime pre­ven­tion and jus­tice re­form among the most im­por­tant pri­or­i­ties for gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the sur­vey, crime and se­cu­ri­ty threats re­main ma­jor ob­sta­cles to in­vest­ment and busi­ness ex­pan­sion, while re­spon­dents al­so iden­ti­fied im­proved pub­lic sec­tor ac­count­abil­i­ty and stronger law en­force­ment as es­sen­tial for eco­nom­ic progress.

Am­cham T&T de­scribed crime as a se­ri­ous threat to busi­ness con­fi­dence, tal­ent re­ten­tion and for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment.

It rec­om­mend­ed a com­pre­hen­sive strength­en­ing of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, in­clud­ing greater in­vest­ment in the ju­di­cia­ry, digi­ti­sa­tion of case man­age­ment sys­tems and im­proved foren­sic ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Among its pro­pos­als are the im­ple­men­ta­tion of per­for­mance tar­gets for court op­er­a­tions, elec­tron­ic case files, ac­cel­er­at­ed move­ment of mat­ters through the jus­tice sys­tem and ex­pand­ed re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes aimed at equip­ping of­fend­ers with aca­d­e­m­ic and vo­ca­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

“Set tar­gets and pub­lish da­ta on case turn­around times, re­duc­ing the gap be­tween ar­rest and sen­tenc­ing. Us­ing a digi­tised plat­form, es­tab­lish time­lines for cas­es by cat­e­go­ry.

“Im­ple­ment an in­de­pen­dent per­for­mance ap­praisal sys­tem for court of­fi­cers (bench and clerks) to im­prove case man­age­ment,” the cham­ber iden­ti­fied.

It al­so called for mod­ernised crime man­age­ment sys­tems with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice and en­hanced com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing ini­tia­tives as it em­pha­sised that com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment is a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of re­duc­ing crime.

“With young peo­ple be­ing re­cruit­ed in­to gangs at ear­li­er ages, the TTPS must fo­cus on build­ing trust and con­fi­dence with­in com­mu­ni­ties,” it added.

It al­so called for a state-of-the-art DNA lab­o­ra­to­ry to im­prove in­ves­tiga­tive ca­pac­i­ty and sup­port crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions.

Ease of do­ing busi­ness re­quires ur­gent re­form

The cham­ber’s rec­om­men­da­tions place strong em­pha­sis on im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness, which mem­bers iden­ti­fied as a ma­jor im­ped­i­ment to com­pet­i­tive­ness.

Re­spon­dents called for the elim­i­na­tion of re­dun­dant reg­u­la­tions, stream­lined ap­proval process­es and greater digi­ti­sa­tion of gov­ern­ment ser­vices.

Am­cham T&T high­light­ed the need for im­prove­ments in in­sti­tu­tions such as the Board of In­land Rev­enue, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, li­cens­ing au­thor­i­ties and the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry.

Among its key rec­om­men­da­tions are full au­toma­tion of cus­toms pro­ce­dures, im­ple­men­ta­tion of risk-based car­go man­age­ment sys­tems, faster clear­ance of com­mer­cial ship­ments and more ef­fec­tive use of the ASY­CU­DA plat­form.

The cham­ber al­so re­newed calls for re­form of the VAT re­fund process stat­ing, “While we ac­knowl­edge the ef­forts be­ing made to pay off some of the out­stand­ing VAT re­funds, the cur­rent sys­tem does not al­low for the time­ly set­tle­ment of VAT re­funds.

“We rec­om­mend that VAT re­funds be han­dled us­ing a sep­a­rate sys­tem from in­come and cor­po­ra­tion tax­es to en­sure that funds are avail­able from the VAT col­lect­ed to is­sue VAT re­funds.”

Am­cham T&T ar­gued that ad­dress­ing bu­reau­crat­ic in­ef­fi­cien­cies would re­duce costs, im­prove in­vestor con­fi­dence and sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of a more com­pet­i­tive busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment.

Safe­guard­ing en­er­gy com­pet­i­tive­ness

De­spite the push for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, the Cham­ber ac­knowl­edged that nat­ur­al gas re­mains cen­tral to the econ­o­my, sup­port­ing for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion, em­ploy­ment, man­u­fac­tur­ing and gov­ern­ment rev­enue. How­ev­er, it warned that de­clin­ing gas pro­duc­tion and un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing sup­ply al­lo­ca­tions are cre­at­ing risks for down­stream in­dus­tries.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion there­fore called for a trans­par­ent gas al­lo­ca­tion pol­i­cy, longer-term sup­ply agree­ments and ac­cel­er­at­ed de­vel­op­ment of ma­jor cross-bor­der gas projects, in­clud­ing Drag­on, Lo­ran-Man­a­tee and Man­akin-Cocuina.

“Con­tin­ue to pri­ori­tise projects such as Drag­on, Lo­ran-Man­a­tee and Man­akin-Cocuina while pur­su­ing the diplo­mat­ic and reg­u­la­to­ry arrange­ments nec­es­sary to bring these re­sources in­to pro­duc­tion as quick­ly as com­mer­cial­ly fea­si­ble,” Am­cham T&T said.

It ar­gued that main­tain­ing a bal­ance be­tween LNG ex­ports and down­stream in­dus­tries would be crit­i­cal to pre­serv­ing em­ploy­ment, sus­tain­ing in­dus­tri­al com­pet­i­tive­ness and pro­tect­ing fu­ture eco­nom­ic growth.

Over­all,the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s mes­sage ahead of the bud­get is that the coun­try could no longer re­ly sole­ly on pol­i­cy an­nounce­ments.

In­stead, it said mean­ing­ful im­ple­men­ta­tion, greater ac­count­abil­i­ty and sus­tained col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor will be es­sen­tial to un­lock­ing in­vest­ment, im­prov­ing com­pet­i­tive­ness and cre­at­ing a more re­silient and di­ver­si­fied econ­o­my.

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion as a growth strat­e­gy

A ma­jor fo­cus of the sub­mis­sion is the cre­ation of a mod­ern dig­i­tal econ­o­my ca­pa­ble of dri­ving pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, im­prov­ing gov­ern­ment ser­vices and gen­er­at­ing new ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Am­cham T&T called for a co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al dig­i­tal pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture pro­gramme that would in­te­grate dig­i­tal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tems, gov­ern­ment pay­ment plat­forms, in­ter­op­er­a­ble data­bas­es and a uni­fied on­line ser­vice por­tal.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said Gov­ern­ment should move be­yond iso­lat­ed dig­i­tal projects and adopt a com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven trans­for­ma­tion.

The cham­ber al­so pro­posed digi­ti­sa­tion of high-de­mand pub­lic ser­vices, de­vel­op­ment of a na­tion­al ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence frame­work, ex­pan­sion of cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives and the es­tab­lish­ment of a dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion fund linked to clear per­for­mance tar­gets. Ad­di­tion­al rec­om­men­da­tions in­clude a dig­i­tal no­mad visa pro­gramme, ex­pand­ed tech­nol­o­gy-fo­cused train­ing and the cre­ation of in­no­va­tion cen­tres to sup­port emerg­ing in­dus­tries.

“This pro­gramme should of­fer com­pet­i­tive visa con­di­tions as well the right to work for up to 24 months. This should be un­der­pinned by a stream­lined ap­pli­ca­tion process­es and clear, tax oblig­a­tions de­pend­ing on the source of in­come,” Am­cham T&T said.

It stressed dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion has the po­ten­tial to im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy across the pub­lic sec­tor, re­duce ad­min­is­tra­tive bur­dens and po­si­tion T&T as a more at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tion for in­vest­ment and tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven in­dus­tries.