As the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion pre­pares to de­liv­er its first na­tion­al bud­get, key busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions like the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) and Am­cham T&T have pre­sent­ed a uni­fied vi­sion for a di­ver­si­fied and re­silient econ­o­my.

Their pro­pos­als high­light a shared un­der­stand­ing that a move away from tra­di­tion­al re­liance on the en­er­gy sec­tor is para­mount, and that bold, de­ci­sive ac­tion is need­ed to tack­le long-stand­ing is­sues that are ham­per­ing growth across all sec­tors.

While the TTC­SI pro­vid­ed a roadmap cen­tred on var­i­ous sec­tors, Am­cham T&T called for “bold and de­ci­sive ac­tion” to tack­le per­sis­tent is­sues that have been hold­ing back na­tion­al progress.

Crime and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­main a top wor­ry for these busi­ness groups.

Am­cham T&T la­belled this scourge as the “num­ber one con­cern” for its mem­bers, cit­ing it as a ma­jor de­ter­rent to in­vest­ment and tal­ent re­ten­tion.

The TTC­SI con­curred, not­ing its neg­a­tive im­pact on the rep­u­ta­tion and per­for­mance of ser­vice sec­tors like tourism and busi­ness process out­sourc­ing (BPOs).

It al­so not­ed the neg­a­tive im­pact of crime on cit­i­zens, busi­ness­es and the na­tion’s rep­u­ta­tion.

“A high and seem­ing­ly un­con­trol­lable crime rate is a ma­jor de­ter­rent to for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment and busi­ness in gen­er­al. T&T’s main draw­back is not the lack of leg­is­la­tion, but the in­ef­fi­cien­cy of the en­force­ment sys­tem and the Ju­di­cia­ry. Strength­en­ing these in­sti­tu­tions, to­geth­er with the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of con­victs, will go a long way in ad­dress­ing crime,” Am­cham T&T said.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion main­tained that ad­dress­ing crime must re­main a top pri­or­i­ty to re­build trust and re­duce busi­ness costs.

The TTC­SI echoed this sen­ti­ment, high­light­ing that high crime lev­els par­tic­u­lar­ly hurt im­por­tant ser­vice-based in­dus­tries like tourism, busi­ness process out­sourc­ing (BPOs) and the cre­ative in­dus­tries.

To ad­dress the is­sue, both bod­ies pro­pose a mul­ti-faceted ap­proach.

Rec­om­men­da­tions in­clude:

• Strength­en­ing com­mu­ni­ty-based ser­vices—This in­volves pro­vid­ing more me­di­a­tion, youth coun­selling and le­gal aid;

• Im­prov­ing the ju­di­cial sys­tem—Key pro­pos­als in­clude digi­tis­ing the court sys­tem with e-fil­ing and case track­ing, as well as in­tro­duc­ing night courts to clear case back­logs and im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy.

These mea­sures aim to stream­line the jus­tice sys­tem and fos­ter a more se­cure en­vi­ron­ment for in­vest­ment and growth.

Am­cham T&T fur­ther sug­gest­ed that com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment is a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of re­duc­ing crime.

With young peo­ple be­ing re­cruit­ed in­to gangs at ear­li­er ages, it urged that the TTPS must fo­cus on build­ing trust and con­fi­dence with­in com­mu­ni­ties by:

• In­creas­ing in­vest­ment in com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing ini­tia­tives, es­pe­cial­ly through ex­pan­sion of the po­lice youth clubs;

• De­vel­op­ing struc­tured pro­grammes where lo­cal po­lice of­fi­cers reg­u­lar­ly meet and in­ter­act with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, build­ing trust and fos­ter­ing proac­tive co­op­er­a­tion in crime pre­ven­tion.

Both the TTC­SI and Am­cham T&T al­so pin­point­ed Gov­ern­ment’s in­ef­fi­cien­cy as a ma­jor ob­sta­cle to eco­nom­ic growth, with a spe­cif­ic fo­cus on the ease of do­ing busi­ness.

They agreed that bu­reau­crat­ic de­lays and a lack of clear pro­ce­dures are hin­der­ing busi­ness ex­pan­sion, in­vest­ment and dai­ly op­er­a­tions.

The TTC­SI fur­ther point­ed out sev­er­al spe­cif­ic chal­lenges:

• Busi­ness­es face sig­nif­i­cant hur­dles in ob­tain­ing li­cens­es, reg­is­ter­ing, and ac­cess­ing gov­ern­ment grants;

• Poor in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion—This makes es­sen­tial process­es like trade com­pli­ance un­nec­es­sar­i­ly com­plex and time-con­sum­ing;

• Trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion bot­tle­necks—De­lays in car­go in­spec­tion and clear­ance are a sig­nif­i­cant is­sue. The lim­it­ed use of Non-In­tru­sive In­spec­tion (NII) equip­ment con­tributes to port con­ges­tion, in­ef­fi­cien­cies, and height­ened se­cu­ri­ty risks.

Am­cham T&T echoed these con­cerns, agree­ing that im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness in T&T re­mains one of the most press­ing needs among its mem­bers.

“Busi­ness­es con­tin­ue to face long de­lays, un­clear pro­ce­dures, and reg­u­la­to­ry in­ef­fi­cien­cies that hin­der ex­pan­sion, in­vest­ment, and day-to-day op­er­a­tions. These chal­lenges are es­pe­cial­ly harm­ful to SMEs, im­port-de­pen­dent sec­tors, and com­pa­nies seek­ing to scale re­gion­al­ly or glob­al­ly. A clear strat­e­gy and ac­count­able lead­er­ship must be ap­plied across gov­ern­ment agen­cies to cre­ate a pre­dictable, trans­par­ent, and in­vestor-friend­ly busi­ness cli­mate,” it too agreed.

Am­cham T&T said that as the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty seeks to work in part­ner­ship with the Gov­ern­ment to en­hance bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, it rec­om­mend­ed the re­moval of VAT and du­ties on se­cu­ri­ty-re­lat­ed hard­ware pur­chased by tran­sit sheds and lo­gis­tics com­pa­nies that en­hance bor­der se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

These would in­clude, but are not lim­it­ed to, scan­ners.

Am­cham T&T fur­ther ad­vised that the ASY­CU­DA sys­tem, a com­put­erised cus­toms man­age­ment sys­tem used for trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, must be utilised to its full po­ten­tial.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion’s rec­om­men­da­tion comes in the wake of re­cent sys­tem dis­rup­tions, which have high­light­ed crit­i­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

While the sys­tem is a key tool for im­prov­ing ef­fi­cien­cy and se­cu­ri­ty, it has been plagued by is­sues such as a lack of prop­er back­up in­fra­struc­ture and dis­as­ter re­cov­ery pro­to­cols.

“With in­ter­na­tion­al trade in­creas­ing, it is alarm­ing that de­spite the coun­try mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments in an ASY­CU­DA sys­tem, some mod­ules are still to be de­ployed, and a man­u­al sys­tem is still be­ing used. Am­cham T&T be­lieves that as the coun­try em­braces dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, this will al­so be done at our bor­ders,” it added.

The busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so ad­dressed a key cross-cut­ting is­sue af­fect­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness: the cur­rent T&T-US dou­ble tax­a­tion treaty.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion has rec­om­mend­ed that the gov­ern­ment ini­ti­ate dis­cus­sions with the US gov­ern­ment to rene­go­ti­ate this treaty, which was orig­i­nal­ly signed in 1970.

“The cur­rent treaty, in place since 1971, is out­dat­ed and does not align with mod­ern glob­al stan­dards or re­flect the evolv­ing trade and in­vest­ment re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and the Unit­ed States. No­tably, it of­fers no re­lief from the US stan­dard 30 per cent with­hold­ing tax on div­i­dends and in­ter­est to T&T res­i­dents, un­like treaties with re­gion­al peers like Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos, which pro­vide re­duced rates as low as five per cent,” it ex­plained.

This, Am­cham T&T said, puts lo­cal in­vestors at a com­pet­i­tive dis­ad­van­tage and dis­cour­ages the repa­tri­a­tion of US in­come, ul­ti­mate­ly lim­it­ing for­eign ex­change in­flows, rein­vest­ment and tax rev­enue col­lec­tion in T&T.

It stressed that rene­go­ti­a­tion would not on­ly en­hance com­pet­i­tive­ness but al­so sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of lo­cal cap­i­tal mar­kets and bet­ter align with in­ter­na­tion­al tax trans­paren­cy stan­dards.

In its bud­get rec­om­men­da­tions, Am­cham T&T al­so em­pha­sised that while the Gov­ern­ment has made progress on its na­tion­al dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion strat­e­gy, more fo­cussed, high-im­pact ini­tia­tives are nec­es­sary for T&T to be­come a leader in the dig­i­tal econ­o­my.

In this vein, it said Gov­ern­ment should fi­nalise and im­ple­ment a clear, mea­sur­able na­tion­al dig­i­tal econ­o­my strat­e­gy with a fo­cus on high-val­ue in­dus­tries such as soft­ware de­vel­op­ment, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, pre­ci­sion agri­cul­ture and cre­ative dig­i­tal me­dia.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Am­cham T&T said a dig­i­tal no­mad visa pol­i­cy ought to be in­tro­duced to at­tract for­eign re­mote work­ers, stim­u­late tourism and di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my.

It said this should of­fer com­pet­i­tive visa con­di­tions, stream­lined ap­pli­ca­tion process­es, and in­te­gra­tion with lo­cal co-work­ing, hous­ing, and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment ini­tia­tives, adding it could gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change earn­ings, en­hance in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­bil­i­ty, and con­tribute to a vi­brant lo­cal dig­i­tal econ­o­my.

Mean­while, the TTC­SI stat­ed that a ma­jor ob­sta­cle to achiev­ing dig­i­tal goals is the lim­it­ed ca­pac­i­ty of ser­vice-sec­tor MSMEs (mi­cro, small, and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es) as these busi­ness­es of­ten lack ac­cess to the nec­es­sary dig­i­tal tools, in­fra­struc­ture and train­ing to com­pete on an in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el.

It is propos­ing the im­ple­men­ta­tion a na­tion­al dig­i­tal ser­vices hub, sub­sidised train­ing in cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, etc as well as in­cen­tivis­ing in­no­va­tion hubs and pro­mot­ing ex­port-ready dig­i­tal ser­vices (eg, fin­tech).