RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment pre­pares for its June 18 mid-year Bud­get re­view, mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty are call­ing for firm pol­i­cy di­rec­tion on the fis­cal deficit, the for­eign ex­change short­age, ease of do­ing busi­ness, and per­sis­tent in­ef­fi­cien­cies at the ports that con­tin­ue to im­pact small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs).

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said small busi­ness­es re­main un­der pres­sure, es­pe­cial­ly due to de­lays in ac­cess­ing for­eign cur­ren­cy re­quests and a lack of pol­i­cy clar­i­ty.

“The most im­por­tant thing is the ease of do­ing busi­ness,” Ma­haraj said.

He al­so high­light­ed un­re­solved is­sues sur­round­ing tax re­funds.

“To avoid de­lays in fund­ing re­funds, we should know or have a clear pol­i­cy from the Gov­ern­ment as to when re­funds will be paid, as op­posed to just wait­ing and ex­pect­ing an an­nounce­ment to be made,” he ex­plained.

On the mat­ter of the fis­cal deficit, Ma­haraj said trans­paren­cy was need­ed.

“My un­der­stand­ing is that it’s just short of $5 bil­lion. In or­der for the coun­try to con­tin­ue do­ing any­thing, we need to de­ter­mine whether we con­tin­ue with our deficit bud­get or do we bor­row mon­ey. They should tell us how they in­tend to do it,” he added.

Ma­haraj al­so called for a pol­i­cy that clear­ly out­lines how for­eign ex­change is al­lo­cat­ed.

“Most SMEs im­port goods and we know there is a for­eign ex­change short­age. So what is im­por­tant to us is to have a clear pol­i­cy on forex so we will bet­ter be able to plan how we move in pow­er in terms of im­port­ing any goods or ser­vices,” he said.

In San Fer­nan­do, Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment must face fi­nan­cial con­straints di­rect­ly.

“The new Gov­ern­ment is go­ing to face chal­lenges with the eco­nom­ic re­sources avail­able to it at this time. We have a de­clin­ing en­er­gy sec­tor that is not per­form­ing as well as we need it to,” Singh said.

He wel­comed the Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment re­gard­ing the re­open­ing of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery but not­ed that de­tails were lim­it­ed.

“That will take months to come in­to op­er­a­tion, but we look for­ward to see­ing how this will be done,” Singh said.

Singh added that San Fer­nan­do’s wa­ter­front presents a vi­able eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“The wa­ter­front is al­so some­thing we hope will be de­vel­oped be­cause this is the new eco­nom­ic fron­tier for San Fer­nan­do. It will ben­e­fit the com­mu­ni­ty and al­so con­tribute to so­cial de­vel­op­ment,” he said.

On the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF), Singh said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty ac­cept­ed the short-term use of the fund.

“The Prime Min­is­ter spoke of draw­ing down from the HSF in the short term. While it is not the ide­al sit­u­a­tion, we sup­port that move to meet ex­pens­es,” he said.

Singh point­ed to agri­cul­ture and tourism as sec­tors with po­ten­tial to gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change.

“With the de­vel­op­ment of the wa­ter­front, we want to see more yachts com­ing in­to the south­west penin­su­la, more cruise ships bring­ing in for­eign ex­change. We want to see wa­ter sports be­ing de­vel­oped. Is there a plan for the La Brea dry­dock fa­cil­i­ty?” he asked.

He called for faster cus­toms clear­ance and digi­tised op­er­a­tions for goods en­ter­ing the coun­try.

Mean­while, San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Daphne Bartlett said busi­ness lead­ers need more in­for­ma­tion on the state of pub­lic fi­nances be­fore set­ting ex­pec­ta­tions.

“We need to know how much from the bud­get­ed amount for fis­cal 2025 is still un­spent. We did ob­serve that there were sev­er­al bor­row­ings and a draw­down on the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF). Giv­en that in­for­ma­tion then the new­ly formed gov­ern­ment would be able to make an in­formed de­ci­sion,” she said.

Bartlett ac­knowl­edged that some cam­paign promis­es were al­ready im­ple­ment­ed, in­clud­ing the re­moval of prop­er­ty tax and re­duc­tions in food prices, but she cau­tioned against ex­pect­ing rapid im­ple­men­ta­tion of all mea­sures.

She said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty was look­ing for­ward to the re­open­ing of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery.

“We know that it would gen­er­ate the much-need­ed em­ploy­ment and for­eign ex­change. When we start to pro­duce our own fu­el we would save the coun­try ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$740 mil­lion. These are the things that are of im­me­di­ate con­cern to us,” she said.

She al­so not­ed progress in agri­cul­ture and tourism and ex­pressed sup­port for us­ing the HSF if nec­es­sary.

“If we have to with­draw from the HSF if it is nec­es­sary then so be it. We would do it with the aim of de­posit­ing when our en­er­gy sec­tor perks up. We have had three re­cent oil finds. Thank God for that,” she said.

In re­cent months, the Gov­ern­ment has re­port­ed sev­er­al new en­er­gy dis­cov­er­ies. bpTT an­nounced the Gin­ger gas de­vel­op­ment and a suc­cess­ful gas find at the Frangi­pani well. EOG Re­sources al­so con­firmed an oil dis­cov­ery at the Beryl well in the TSP Deep Area. En­er­gy stake­hold­ers have said these finds are ex­pect­ed to sup­port en­er­gy pro­duc­tion and ease fis­cal pres­sures.