The Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BATT) has wel­comed re­cent talks in­volv­ing the Gov­ern­ment, the Cen­tral Bank, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the bank­ing sec­tor, de­scrib­ing the en­gage­ment as im­por­tant to strength­en­ing the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial sys­tem and sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

The meet­ing, con­vened ear­li­er this week by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, brought to­geth­er of­fi­cials from the Gov­ern­ment, the Cen­tral Bank, and the bank­ing in­dus­try to dis­cuss is­sues af­fect­ing the fi­nan­cial sec­tor and wider econ­o­my.

In a state­ment sent to Guardian Me­dia, BATT said the bank­ing sec­tor plays a crit­i­cal role in sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, fa­cil­i­tat­ing in­vest­ment, en­abling trade, mo­bil­is­ing sav­ings, and fi­nanc­ing busi­ness­es and house­holds.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said on­go­ing en­gage­ment among pol­i­cy­mak­ers, reg­u­la­tors, and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions re­mains es­sen­tial to en­sur­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fi­nan­cial sys­tem stays re­silient, mod­ern, in­clu­sive, and re­spon­sive to chang­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions.

BATT pres­i­dent Nigel Bap­tiste said the as­so­ci­a­tion strong­ly sup­ports con­tin­ued en­gage­ment be­tween the Gov­ern­ment, the Cen­tral Bank, and the bank­ing sec­tor.

“Mean­ing­ful di­a­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion are crit­i­cal to build­ing con­fi­dence, strength­en­ing in­sti­tu­tions, and en­sur­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fi­nan­cial sys­tem con­tin­ues to ef­fec­tive­ly serve cit­i­zens, busi­ness­es, and the wider econ­o­my.

“We ap­pre­ci­ate the open­ness and spir­it of part­ner­ship demon­strat­ed dur­ing these dis­cus­sions and look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing con­struc­tive en­gage­ment in the na­tion­al in­ter­est,” Bap­tiste said.

BATT said it looks for­ward to con­tin­ued di­a­logue with stake­hold­ers as T&T works to­ward sus­tain­able growth and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.