GEISHA KOW­LESSAR ALON­ZO

All eyes are on the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion as it pre­pares to un­veil its high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed 2026 na­tion­al bud­get—its first in a decade.

Dif­fer­ent sec­tors and groups have been mak­ing their voic­es heard, hop­ing their pri­or­i­ties would be re­flect­ed in this piv­otal fi­nan­cial blue­print.

At the fore­front of na­tion­al dis­course is the is­sue of for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty.

Ang­ie Jairam, Pres­i­dent of the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce, is call­ing for tar­get­ed pol­i­cy mea­sures to stim­u­late for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion.

Her ap­peal is echoed by Bal­dath Ma­haraj, Pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) and Ra­mon Gre­go­rio, Pres­i­dent of the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce.

Jairam em­pha­sised the need to strength­en this coun­try’s ex­ports as she pro­posed a suite of strate­gic ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing:

* Ex­port in­cen­tives and tax re­lief for val­ue-added pro­duc­ers;

* Stream­lined ex­port li­cens­ing and cus­toms pro­ce­dures;

* In­vest­ment in trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion in­fra­struc­ture, such as ports and ex­port zones;

These mea­sures, Jairam not­ed, would not on­ly boost non-tra­di­tion­al ex­ports, but al­so re­duce re­liance on im­ports—ul­ti­mate­ly for­ti­fy­ing the coun­try’s for­eign re­serves.

Mean­while, Ma­haraj urged the Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish a clear and trans­par­ent pol­i­cy for for­eign ex­change dis­tri­b­u­tion, en­sur­ing eq­ui­table ac­cess for small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs).

Fair ac­cess to forex, he ex­plained, would em­pow­er busi­ness­es to plan and fore­cast more ef­fec­tive­ly.

Gre­go­rio added to the cho­rus of rec­om­men­da­tions, ad­vo­cat­ing for an ex­pan­sion of the SME forex win­dow al­lo­ca­tion at EX­IM­Bank.

He al­so pro­posed the launch of a pub­lic forex e-mar­ket­place dash­board to pro­vide re­al-time vis­i­bil­i­ty in­to ap­provals, sec­tor al­lo­ca­tions, and turn­around times—en­hanc­ing trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion was al­so sin­gled out as a cor­ner­stone of mod­ern eco­nom­ic re­silience, and its pri­ori­ti­sa­tion in the na­tion­al bud­get is es­sen­tial for dri­ving in­clu­sive growth, im­prov­ing pub­lic ser­vice de­liv­ery and en­hanc­ing busi­ness com­pet­i­tive­ness.

Jairam, un­der­scored the ur­gency of in­vest­ing in dig­i­tal ca­pa­bil­i­ties, stat­ing, “In an in­creas­ing­ly dig­i­tal econ­o­my, con­nec­tiv­i­ty and cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty are no longer op­tion­al—they’re na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties.”

Her cham­ber is ad­vo­cat­ing for bud­get al­lo­ca­tions that in­clude na­tion­wide broad­band ex­pan­sion, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty ca­pac­i­ty build­ing for busi­ness­es and de­vel­op­ment of dig­i­tal pay­ment and e-com­merce in­fra­struc­ture.

Re­in­forc­ing Jairam’s po­si­tion, Ma­haraj high­light­ed the trans­for­ma­tive po­ten­tial of dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion in pub­lic ser­vices.

He point­ed to im­prove­ments in the ease of do­ing busi­ness through en­hanced gov­ern­ment e-ser­vices—such as on­line sys­tems for per­mits, li­cences and tax fil­ings.

Gre­go­rio fur­ther urged the Gov­ern­ment to ac­cel­er­ate dig­i­tal pay­ment re­forms, propos­ing a full roll­out of the Cen­tral Bank’s UPI-style fast pay­ments sys­tem across all banks, along with man­dat­ing all Gov­ern­ment di­vi­sions to ac­cept in­stant pay­ments and dis­burse re­funds/grants via the same rails as well as pub­lish­ing a phased, con­sent-based open bank­ing roadmap with APIs for ac­count da­ta and pay­ments.

On the is­sue of trade, Ma­haraj urged the Gov­ern­ment to adopt a more strate­gic and bal­anced ap­proach to tar­iff pol­i­cy in the up­com­ing bud­get.

He rec­om­mend­ed rais­ing tar­iffs on lux­u­ry food im­ports as a means of safe­guard­ing for­eign ex­change re­serves, ar­gu­ing that non-es­sen­tial goods place un­due pres­sure on the coun­try’s lim­it­ed forex sup­ply. At the same time, he called for the re­moval of im­port du­ties on crit­i­cal med­ical equip­ment, not­ing that such a move would sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove health­care ac­cess and af­ford­abil­i­ty.

To stim­u­late re­gion­al trade and eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, Ma­haraj al­so ad­vo­cat­ed for tar­get­ed in­cen­tives for ex­port-ori­ent­ed busi­ness­es.

Tourism

Tourism stands out as a high-im­pact sec­tor with un­tapped po­ten­tial.

Be­yond sun, sea, and Car­ni­val, the in­dus­try of­fers a gate­way to sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, job cre­ation, and glob­al vis­i­bil­i­ty.

In this vein, Lisa Shandilya—found­ing mem­ber of the Tourism In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T and own­er of the Chan­cel­lor Ho­tel in St Ann’s—is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to adopt a bold, mul­ti-pronged ap­proach to re­vi­tal­is­ing the tourism sec­tor.

At the heart of Shandilya’s rec­om­men­da­tions is the rein­tro­duc­tion of a ded­i­cat­ed tourism polic­ing unit, a move she de­scribed as es­sen­tial for restor­ing vis­i­tor con­fi­dence.

Its mem­bers should be trained not on­ly in se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols but al­so in first aid and cus­tomer ser­vice—en­sur­ing that tourists feel pro­tect­ed and wel­comed.

Shandilya al­so called for ur­gent ac­tion to up­grade and man­age the coun­try’s nat­ur­al at­trac­tions, which she de­scribed as “core as­sets” in T&T’s tourism of­fer­ing.

Poor main­te­nance, she warned, risks de­grad­ing vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ences and dam­ag­ing frag­ile ecosys­tems. She pro­posed the cre­ation of a ded­i­cat­ed man­age­ment unit re­spon­si­ble for staffing, in­fra­struc­ture up­grades, and the con­struc­tion of es­sen­tial ameni­ties such as park­ing and wash­room fa­cil­i­ties.

To fur­ther sup­port sus­tain­able tourism, she rec­om­mend­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of an eco­tourism de­vel­op­ment fund—pro­vid­ing grants to lo­cal en­tre­pre­neurs for small-scale projects like na­ture trails, bird­watch­ing hikes and riv­er tours, all held to rig­or­ous en­vi­ron­men­tal and safe­ty stan­dards.

Recog­nis­ing the need for a skilled work­force to match the grow­ing room stock, Shandilya ad­vo­cat­ed for the es­tab­lish­ment of a ho­tel school in Trinidad. This in­sti­tu­tion would train man­agers, chefs and ser­vice staff to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards, en­sur­ing that new ho­tel de­vel­op­ments are staffed with com­pe­tent pro­fes­sion­als.

To di­ver­si­fy be­yond sea­son­al Car­ni­val tourism, Shandilya urged the Gov­ern­ment to in­vest in sports and MICE (meet­ings, in­cen­tives, con­fer­ences, and ex­hi­bi­tions) tourism.

This would in­volve mar­ket­ing cam­paigns, up­grad­ed con­fer­ence in­fra­struc­ture and fi­nan­cial in­cen­tives for event or­gan­is­ers—in­clud­ing sub­si­dies, tax breaks, and co-fi­nanc­ing mod­els for in­ter­na­tion­al bids.

Fi­nal­ly, Shandilya stressed the im­por­tance of re­vis­ing in­vest­ment poli­cies to at­tract both for­eign and do­mes­tic cap­i­tal.

She called for a trans­par­ent, stream­lined ap­proval process, com­pet­i­tive tax in­cen­tives, and a sta­ble reg­u­la­to­ry en­vi­ron­ment. Im­por­tant­ly, she rec­om­mend­ed ex­pand­ing the scope of tourism de­vel­op­ment to in­clude soft­ware and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, sig­nalling a for­ward-think­ing ap­proach to in­no­va­tion and op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy.

To­ba­go’s rec­om­men­da­tions

Cur­tis Williams, Chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, has laid out a strate­gic set of pro­pos­als aimed at re­vi­tal­is­ing To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor and un­lock­ing its eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial.

Speak­ing with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, Williams em­pha­sised the need for tar­get­ed re­forms and in­vest­ments that would po­si­tion To­ba­go as a com­pet­i­tive, sus­tain­able des­ti­na­tion in the Caribbean.

At the top of his wish­list is a call to boost air con­nec­tiv­i­ty be­tween T&T.

Williams ad­vised Gov­ern­ment to in­crease both the num­ber and sched­ul­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty of air­bridge flights, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing peak trav­el pe­ri­ods.

He fur­ther not­ed the im­por­tance of lever­ag­ing the soon-to-be-com­plet­ed ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal as a cor­ner­stone of To­ba­go’s tourism strat­e­gy as he pro­posed brand­ing the fa­cil­i­ty as a sus­tain­able, green hub, align­ing with glob­al trends in eco-tourism and en­hanc­ing the is­land’s ap­peal to en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious trav­ellers.

To at­tract for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment, Williams called for a com­pre­hen­sive up­date to the For­eign In­vest­ment Act, rec­om­mend­ing key amend­ments such as:

* A 30-day guar­an­tee for is­su­ing land li­cences

* Au­to­mat­ic trans­fer­abil­i­ty of li­cences

* Del­e­gat­ing au­thor­i­ty to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) to is­sue li­cences di­rect­ly

These changes, he ar­gued, would re­duce bu­reau­crat­ic de­lays and make To­ba­go a more at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tion for in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors.

In sup­port of re­sort de­vel­op­ment, Williams pro­posed that re­sorts with a re­al es­tate com­po­nent be el­i­gi­ble for de­vel­op­ment li­cences—an ad­just­ment that could stim­u­late mixed-use tourism projects and broad­en the is­land’s ac­com­mo­da­tion of­fer­ings.