GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

The ser­vices sec­tor is the largest in the T&T econ­o­my, con­tribut­ing an­nu­al­ly on av­er­age $43 bil­lion to its Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct, ac­cord­ing to the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI)

The ser­vices sec­tor is di­verse, cov­er­ing busi­ness ser­vices (pro­fes­sion­al, com­put­er etc), con­struc­tion, trans­port, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, fi­nan­cial ser­vices, tourism/trav­el, Gov­ern­ment op­er­a­tions among oth­ers. It em­ploys about 80 per cent of the labour force, some 422,000 peo­ple.

Go­ing for­ward in 2024, the TTC­SI is ad­vo­cat­ing for a more com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to de­vel­op the in­dus­try.

Its CEO, Vashti Guyadeen, shared the plans the or­gan­i­sa­tion is seek­ing to im­ple­ment this year with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian.

“Our fo­cus is on strength­en­ing the in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work of ser­vices sec­tor as­so­ci­a­tions and en­hanc­ing the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of our en­tre­pre­neurs and MSMEs to be­come com­pet­i­tive in in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets. We be­lieve in nur­tur­ing an ‘ex­porters mind­set’ and are com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing our mem­bers through ini­tia­tives like the Gate­way to Trade Ex­port Ac­cel­er­a­tor Pro­gramme (which we suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed in 2023) and in­ter­na­tion­al net­work­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“A key el­e­ment of our vi­sion is the es­tab­lish­ment of a Ser­vices Sec­tor Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Task Force, which will play a piv­otal role in strate­gis­ing and im­ple­ment­ing plans for sus­tain­able growth and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the sec­tor,” Guyadeen de­tailed.

The is­sue of ad­dress­ing the coun­try’s for­eign ex­change sit­u­a­tion is high on the agen­da which, she em­pha­sised is crit­i­cal.

The busi­ness sup­port or­gan­i­sa­tion is al­so seek­ing a more strate­gic al­lo­ca­tion of for­eign ex­change re­sources to en­sure there is sup­port for growth and in­ter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness of busi­ness­es with­in the ser­vices sec­tors, Guyadeen said.

Stat­ing that there ought to be the pro­vi­sion of new fis­cal in­cen­tives for net for­eign ex­change earn­ers, she not­ed that for ex­am­ple, glob­al de­mand for an­i­mat­ed con­tent is dri­ven by au­di­ence pop­u­la­tion, with the Unit­ed States be­ing the biggest con­sumer in terms of con­tent val­ue.

“Giv­en that the large and di­verse work­load re­quired to pro­duce an­i­mat­ed con­tent as well as the ease at which this work­load can be dis­trib­uted and done glob­al­ly (with­out ship­ping im­pli­ca­tions), the de­mand for an­i­ma­tion pro­duc­tion ser­vices is con­sis­tent­ly grow­ing,” Guyadeen said.

This, she added, makes the an­i­ma­tion in­dus­try a net for­eign ex­change earn­er for prac­ti­tion­ers of any size.

“Yet the lo­cal prac­ti­tion­ers –whose pro­duc­tion in­puts are all lo­cal – have lit­tle/no need for for­eign ex­change,” she point­ed out, as she ad­vised the Gov­ern­ment can ad­vance fund­ing to an­i­ma­tion prac­ti­tion­ers through loan guar­an­tees or in­ter­est-free loans up to the val­ue of the con­tract through agen­cies such as Ex­im­Bank and/or Ned­co. This should come with­out all the has­sle of three years au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments, which many of these prac­ti­tion­ers can­not pro­duce as well as avail fis­cal in­cen­tives to in­vestors/fi­nanciers will­ing to sup­port these projects.

“Our fo­cus is on en­sur­ing eq­ui­table ac­cess and ef­fi­cient use of these re­sources, which are vi­tal for the health and ex­pan­sion of the ser­vices sec­tor,” Guyadeen stressed.

She al­so ex­plained that the TTC­SI is keen­ly aware of sev­er­al crit­i­cal ar­eas where Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tion is re­quired.

These, Guyadeen said, in­clude en­hanc­ing syn­er­gies among var­i­ous sec­tors such as agri­cul­ture, cul­ture, and man­u­fac­tur­ing to bol­ster the tourism sec­tor; ex­pand­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port mech­a­nisms, in­clud­ing in­cor­po­rat­ing cred­it unions in­to ex­ist­ing SME loan guar­an­tee pro­grammes and strength­en­ing the so­cial in­fra­struc­ture to ad­dress so­cio-eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and re­duce crime, which is vi­tal for a sta­ble busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment.

Crime scourge

Re­gard­ing the coun­try’s wor­ry­ing crime sit­u­a­tion, Guyadeen said there needs to be the en­hance­ment of the ex­per­tise with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

“This rec­om­men­da­tion was made with the in­ten­tion to not on­ly strength­en the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of law en­force­ment but al­so to cre­ate a syn­er­gy where busi­ness­es and au­thor­i­ties can work hand-in-hand,” Guyadeen ex­plained.

Fur­ther, she stat­ed that go­ing for­ward it is im­por­tant for key stake­hold­ers in law en­force­ment to dis­cuss and im­ple­ment ef­fec­tive strate­gies.

“These meet­ings must not just be about di­a­logue but must fo­cus on de­vel­op­ing ac­tion­able plans that can be swift­ly im­ple­ment­ed to pro­vide im­me­di­ate re­lief to af­fect­ed busi­ness­es and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty since all cit­i­zens are im­pact­ed.

“Our goal is clear – to cre­ate a safer and more se­cure en­vi­ron­ment where busi­ness­es can op­er­ate with­out the fear of crim­i­nal in­ter­fer­ence. This can on­ly be achieved through a col­lec­tive ef­fort,” Guyadeen ad­vised.

Re­gard­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness she is al­so hope­ful that this can fur­ther im­prove in 2024.

The TTC­SI’s CEO not­ed that in 2023, this coun­try wit­nessed some im­prove­ments in the ease of do­ing busi­ness, but there is still a sub­stan­tial scope for fur­ther de­vel­op­ment.

“The Gov­ern­ment’s ini­tia­tive to­wards digi­ti­sa­tion of process­es marks a pro­gres­sive step; how­ev­er, we ad­vo­cate for a more holis­tic ap­proach. This in­cludes stream­lin­ing pro­ce­dures, cut­ting down bu­reau­crat­ic red tape, and fos­ter­ing a busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment that is con­ducive to growth and in­no­va­tion,” Guyadeen stat­ed.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly, she not­ed there’s an ur­gent need to re­fine busi­ness process­es, bol­ster dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture, and nur­ture an ecosys­tem that sup­ports both es­tab­lished busi­ness­es and bud­ding en­tre­pre­neurs.

“We be­lieve that sim­pli­fy­ing these process­es is not just about adopt­ing dig­i­tal so­lu­tions, but al­so about cre­at­ing poli­cies and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works that are more re­spon­sive to the needs of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty,” Guyadeen added.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she said from a sec­tor-spe­cif­ic per­spec­tive, fo­cused at­ten­tion is re­quired for sub-sec­tors like tourism and mar­itime ser­vices.

These sec­tors, ac­cord­ing to Guyadeen, de­spite their high po­ten­tial for job cre­ation and for­eign ex­change earn­ings, con­tin­ue to face sig­nif­i­cant bu­reau­crat­ic chal­lenges.

There­fore, she em­pha­sised that in 2024 the aim must be to elim­i­nate these hur­dles and stream­line op­er­a­tions, there­by un­lock­ing their full po­ten­tial for con­tribut­ing to the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

Trade Min­is­ter Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon has al­ways un­der­scored the im­por­tance the ser­vices sec­tor to the coun­try’s econ­o­my.

At a break­fast meet­ing host­ed by the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion in cel­e­bra­tion of Tu­na­puna Week last No­vem­ber, she urged busi­ness­es to op­er­ate with a “peo­ple-first mind­set” with re­spect to pro­duc­ing qual­i­ty goods and ser­vices.

“This peo­ple-cen­tred ap­proach has a mul­ti­pli­er ef­fect on com­mu­ni­ties by im­prov­ing the so­cial fab­ric not just with­in the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty but through­out the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

“In­cor­po­rat­ing busi­ness­es in­to lo­cal gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions and pol­i­cy-mak­ing is, there­fore, an im­per­a­tive. As such, this event is very fit­ting and one I hope that the cor­po­ra­tion will build up­on,” the min­is­ter sug­gest­ed.

She added that stake­hold­er en­gage­ment and con­tin­ued di­a­logue are al­so nec­es­sary and should be at the fore­front of de­ci­sion mak­ing for de­vel­op­ment.