An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says the coun­try’s for­eign ex­change chal­lenges are so se­vere that even he could on­ly ac­cess US$200 dur­ing a re­cent vis­it to his bank.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) post-bud­get fo­rum at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port of Spain, Tan­coo said the short­age has reached every lev­el of so­ci­ety and will take time to fix.

“I can tell you re­cent­ly when I trav­elled, I went to the bank and I got US$200. I’m the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance,” he re­vealed, prompt­ing laugh­ter and dis­be­lief from the au­di­ence. “I couldn’t pay for the air­fare, ho­tel, and food at the same time that’s where we are.”

Tan­coo said while the pub­lic’s frus­tra­tion is un­der­stand­able, the cur­rent for­eign ex­change cri­sis is not new and was not cre­at­ed by the present ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“As much as I wish I could wave a mag­ic wand and solve the prob­lem, I can’t,” he said. “What I can do is put mech­a­nisms in place to in­crease the gen­er­a­tion of for­eign ex­change and to bet­ter man­age the sup­ply that ex­ists.”

He ex­plained that the Gov­ern­ment is work­ing to re­form the al­lo­ca­tion process to make ac­cess more trans­par­ent and to en­sure that those busi­ness­es most like­ly to earn or save for­eign ex­change are pri­ori­tised.

The Min­is­ter al­so cit­ed il­le­gal gam­bling and il­lic­it trade as ar­eas drain­ing for­eign cur­ren­cy from the fi­nan­cial sys­tem, say­ing some op­er­a­tors were pay­ing as much as TT$10 for one US dol­lar in un­der­ground mar­kets.

“There is for­eign ex­change in the sys­tem, but the prob­lem is how it’s be­ing used,” Tan­coo said. “We in­tend to put more em­pha­sis on redi­rect­ing what ex­ists to­ward pro­duc­tive use and ex­port gen­er­a­tion.”

He ac­knowl­edged that the process would take time and could face re­sis­tance from en­ti­ties that have long ben­e­fit­ted from pref­er­en­tial ac­cess to US dol­lars.

“This will not be easy,” he said. “But it will be an open and trans­par­ent ef­fort to spread for­eign ex­change to those who can use it to grow the econ­o­my.”

Tan­coo urged both busi­ness­es and con­sumers to be more de­lib­er­ate about their spend­ing choic­es, ar­gu­ing that re­duc­ing de­mand for un­nec­es­sary im­ports will help ease the strain.

“The on­ly sus­tain­able so­lu­tion is to gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change out­side of the en­er­gy sec­tor,” he said. “We must build a more re­silient, ex­port-dri­ven econ­o­my one that lasts be­yond oil and gas.”

Dur­ing Tan­coo’s pre­sen­ta­tion of the Fi­nance (Sup­ple­men­tary Ap­pro­pri­a­tion) Bill 2025 and the mid-year re­view on June 18, he un­veiled a strate­gic roadmap for tack­ling T&T’s on­go­ing for­eign ex­change chal­lenges.

Tan­coo out­lined a five-point plan fo­cused on re­form­ing the forex sys­tem, boost­ing in­vestor con­fi­dence, and mod­ernising fis­cal in­fra­struc­ture. Cen­tral to the strat­e­gy is the cre­ation of a For­eign Ex­change Al­lo­ca­tion Com­mit­tee to en­sure fair and trans­par­ent dis­tri­b­u­tion. High-vol­ume im­porters will be re­quired to sub­mit manda­to­ry re­ports, strength­en­ing over­sight of cur­ren­cy flows. Mea­sures to en­cour­age repa­tri­a­tion of funds in­clude in­vest­ment pro­tec­tion pro­to­cols and div­i­dend safe­guards, while tax in­cen­tives are be­ing ex­plored to re­tain for­eign cur­ren­cy earn­ings lo­cal­ly.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he pro­posed re­view­ing and har­mon­is­ing bi­lat­er­al tax treaties with Cari­com part­ners to stim­u­late re­gion­al in­vest­ment.

The min­is­ter stressed that these re­forms aim not on­ly to sta­bilise the im­me­di­ate forex sit­u­a­tion but al­so to es­tab­lish a foun­da­tion for long-term eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, sig­nalling a com­mit­ment to both short-term re­cov­ery and sus­tain­able growth.