GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The se­cu­ri­ties in­dus­try is vi­tal for dri­ving eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and pro­mot­ing fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty in T&T, with the eq­ui­ty mar­ket re­main­ing the largest seg­ment of the lo­cal se­cu­ri­ties mar­ket, mea­sured by the vari­able mar­ket cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion, said Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Bri­an Man­ning. That serves as an in­di­ca­tor of the con­tri­bu­tion of T&T's se­cu­ri­ties mar­ket to its econ­o­my, he said.

Man­ning al­so not­ed that de­spite ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an av­er­age an­nu­al de­crease of four per cent over the last five years, as of De­cem­ber 2023, the mar­ket cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion of the eq­ui­ty and mu­tu­al fund mar­kets amount­ed to $122.53 bil­lion.

In this re­gard, he said the mar­ket con­tin­ues to ex­hib­it signs of growth, with the num­ber of trades and trad­ed vol­ume in the sec­ondary mar­ket in­creas­ing by 81.65 per cent and 47.11 per cent, re­spec­tive­ly.

Man­ning made the com­ments while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the T&T Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion’s (TTSEC), strate­gic stake­hold­er en­gage­ment fo­rum themed, “In­vig­o­rat­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cap­i­tal Mar­ket,” which took place at the Hy­att Re­gency on Fri­day.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert was sched­uled to speak but did not show.

Man­ning al­so not­ed the lo­cal se­cu­ri­ties mar­ket stands as a bea­con of al­lo­ca­tion ef­fi­cien­cy, sur­pass­ing tra­di­tion­al bank­ing sys­tems in trans­fer­ring cap­i­tal from savers to bor­row­ers. He said that over the past five years, with the reg­is­tra­tion of 114 se­cu­ri­ties from 2019 to 2023, the lo­cal mar­ket has played a piv­otal role in fu­elling eco­nom­ic growth.

Fur­ther, Man­ning said the se­cu­ri­ties in­dus­try of­fers in­vestors a di­verse ar­ray of in­vest­ment op­tions, ex­tend­ing be­yond tra­di­tion­al as­set class­es like stocks and bonds, cit­ing that mu­tu­al funds or Col­lec­tive In­vest­ment Schemes (CISs) pool funds from mul­ti­ple in­vestors to in­vest in di­ver­si­fied port­fo­lios of se­cu­ri­ties.

As of De­cem­ber 2023, the as­sets un­der man­age­ment in the coun­try’s mu­tu­al funds to­talled $62.7 bil­lion.

Re­lat­ing to di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of in­vest­ment port­fo­lios, this re­mains es­sen­tial for man­ag­ing risk and max­imis­ing re­turns, Man­ning said, adding that lo­cal SMEs have al­so se­cured cap­i­tal by of­fer­ing shares or debt se­cu­ri­ties to pri­vate in­vestors, in­clud­ing ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists, pri­vate eq­ui­ty firms or an­gel in­vestors.

The com­mis­sion’s chair­man Im­ti­az Ho­sein fur­ther echoed that a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach is es­sen­tial for iden­ti­fy­ing and im­ple­ment­ing strate­gies that will en­sure the mar­ket’s per­for­mance and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.