The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce T&T (AM­CHAM T&T) has wel­comed the re­duc­tion in tax rates to stim­u­late up­stream oil and gas pro­duc­tion.

AM­CHAM T&T was re­spond­ing to the 2023 Bud­get, read in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day.

The fol­low­ing is AM­CHAM T&T's re­sponse.

"It is clear that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance at­tempt­ed to bal­ance sev­er­al con­sid­er­a­tions in the 2023 bud­get.

We al­so think it pru­dent that an at­tempt is be­ing made to con­tain ex­pen­di­ture. In our opin­ion, the bud­get­ed gas price is rea­son­able in the cur­rent cli­mate. We wel­come re­duc­tions in the tax rates de­signed to stim­u­late up­stream oil and gas pro­duc­tion. In ad­di­tion, the re­duc­tion in tax­es for Fin­Techs and the Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices hub are laud­able ini­tia­tives. AM­CHAM T&T looks for­ward to the op­er­a­tional­iza­tion of the SEZ leg­is­la­tion as a means of en­cour­ag­ing ad­di­tion­al in­vest­ment. We ea­ger­ly await the roll­out of the De­vel­op­ers’ Hub and ap­plaud the ef­fort to de­vel­op soft­ware as a ser­vice for the Gov­ern­ment sec­tor. This soft­ware al­so has the po­ten­tial to be ex­port­ed and the Hub could in­cu­bate small­er tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies. The iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of spe­cif­ic ini­tia­tives to sup­port the tran­si­tion to a cash­less so­ci­ety and to re­move the fric­tion of trans­act­ing busi­ness with the Gov­ern­ment are al­so like­ly to have a pos­i­tive im­pact. We are al­so anx­ious to see the re­sults of the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the re­struc­tur­ing of op­er­a­tions in the wa­ter and sew­er­age sec­tor. Ap­pren­tice­ships and vo­ca­tion­al train­ing as well as sup­port for re­me­di­a­tion in ear­ly high school life of stu­dents as we pre­pare our young peo­ple for the new econ­o­my are im­por­tant and we sup­port these mea­sures. AM­CHAM T&T al­so wel­comes the an­nounce­ment that the Na­tion­al Sta­tis­ti­cal In­sti­tute leg­is­la­tion will be brought to Par­lia­ment and we en­cour­age bi-par­ti­san col­lab­o­ra­tion as ac­cu­rate and time­ly da­ta is nec­es­sary for ef­fec­tive plan­ning for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. AM­CHAM T&T is al­so pleased that the Gov­ern­ment would be im­ple­ment­ing feed-in tar­iffs and is mov­ing to­wards im­ple­ment­ing a re­new­able en­er­gy pol­i­cy - we be­lieve this would not on­ly re­duce de­mands for the scarce nat­ur­al gas to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty, but the re­new­able en­er­gy pol­i­cy would as­sist us in reach­ing our Paris agree­ment tar­gets. We would like to hear con­crete time­lines for these dur­ing the bud­get de­bate. We are how­ev­er dis­ap­point­ed by the lack of broad trans­for­ma­tive ini­tia­tives. We ex­pect­ed the Min­is­ter to re­port on the out­comes of pre­vi­ous an­nounce­ments and give clear­er time­lines for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of new and re­peat­ed an­nounce­ments such as the da­ta in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty frame­work, open da­ta im­ple­men­ta­tion and unique na­tion­al iden­ti­fi­er. We hope that there will be more spe­cif­ic an­nounce­ments by line Min­is­ters dur­ing the de­bate.

The out­look for in­creased pro­duc­tion in the En­er­gy sec­tor in the short term is still un­cer­tain. The sta­bi­liza­tion of the econ­o­my re­mains pre­car­i­ous. Cross-cut­ting mea­sures to im­prove the ease of do­ing busi­ness re­quire fur­ther ar­tic­u­la­tion. In par­tic­u­lar, we are dis­ap­point­ed that there was no em­pha­sis on Cus­toms re­form and dig­i­ti­za­tion of the trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion process. AM­CHAM T&T stands ready and able to col­lab­o­rate with all stake­hold­ers on mat­ters of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment."

SEE MORE: Bud­get 2023: Air­bridge, seabridge, fu­el prices in­crease