An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The coun­try’s ma­jor busi­ness cham­bers have wel­comed the 2026 Na­tion­al Bud­get but are cau­tion­ing that its suc­cess will de­pend heav­i­ly on time­ly im­ple­men­ta­tion, con­sis­tent stake­hold­er en­gage­ment, and trans­paren­cy across pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions.

The Bud­get, pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, has been de­scribed by the pri­vate sec­tor as an im­por­tant step to­wards re­build­ing in­vestor con­fi­dence and mod­ernising State sys­tems. How­ev­er, while many have praised its em­pha­sis on dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion, fis­cal ac­count­abil­i­ty, and fair­ness, oth­ers have warned that long-stand­ing is­sues such as VAT re­funds, for­eign ex­change short­ages, and in­ef­fi­cien­cies in pub­lic ser­vice de­liv­ery must be ur­gent­ly ad­dressed if busi­ness­es are to feel the re­al im­pact of these mea­sures.

The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Am­cham T&T) not­ed that sev­er­al of its long-ad­vo­cat­ed pro­pos­als have been in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the new fis­cal pack­age, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­forms aimed at strength­en­ing the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion. These in­clude in­creased staffing, in­te­gra­tion of ad­vanced tech­nolo­gies such as the up­grad­ed ASY­CU­DA sys­tem, and the in­tro­duc­tion of risk-based au­dit­ing and dig­i­tal pay­ments.

The cham­ber said these re­forms are ex­pect­ed to en­hance ef­fi­cien­cy, re­duce clear­ance times, and im­prove the ease of do­ing busi­ness, a per­sis­tent con­cern among lo­cal and for­eign in­vestors.

How­ev­er, the cham­ber stressed that “last­ing im­pact will de­pend on con­sis­tent in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion and pre­dictable turn­around times.” The busi­ness group has al­so re­peat­ed its call for the es­tab­lish­ment of an In­ter­nal Af­fairs and Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau with­in Cus­toms to ad­dress cor­rup­tion and ac­count­abil­i­ty is­sues.

Turn­ing to tax re­form, Am­cham T&T wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed re­view of the Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) sys­tem and ex­plo­ration of a sim­pler sales tax mod­el. The or­gan­i­sa­tion de­scribed the cur­rent VAT frame­work as “bro­ken”, not­ing that de­layed re­funds con­tin­ue to con­strain cash flow, es­pe­cial­ly among small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es. The Cham­ber urged that be­fore any new sys­tem is in­tro­duced, the State should set­tle all out­stand­ing VAT li­a­bil­i­ties to busi­ness­es.

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion con­tin­ues to be a cor­ner­stone of Am­cham T&T’s ad­vo­ca­cy, and the Cham­ber wel­comed the in­tro­duc­tion of elec­tron­ic pay­ments across Cus­toms and oth­er agen­cies, along­side the cre­ation of a Na­tion­al Dig­i­tal Elec­tron­ic Pay­ment Sys­tem.
It em­pha­sised that suc­cess in this area will de­pend on cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty among sys­tems, and on­go­ing up­skilling of the pub­lic sec­tor work­force.

On hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment, AM­CHAM T&T com­mend­ed gov­ern­ment ef­forts to en­hance teach­ing ca­pac­i­ty, ex­pand tech­ni­cal pro­grammes, and im­prove job qual­i­ty with­in the so­cial sec­tor. It not­ed that link­ing em­ploy­ment to pro­duc­tiv­i­ty out­comes will pro­mote a more mo­ti­vat­ed and sus­tain­able work­force.

The Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent, Ang­ie Jairam, al­so ex­pressed op­ti­mism, say­ing the 2026 bud­get re­flects “a se­ri­ous at­tempt to bal­ance fis­cal con­straints with na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment needs.”

The Cham­ber wel­comed mea­sures such as the es­tab­lish­ment of the Fi­nan­cial Over­sight and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, the cre­ation of the Eco­nom­ic Re­silience Coun­cil, and new dig­i­tal econ­o­my ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing dig­i­tal IDs and a Na­tion­al Pay­ment and In­no­va­tion Com­pa­ny.

“These are vi­tal for trans­paren­cy, in­no­va­tion, and ef­fi­cien­cy, all pre­req­ui­sites for busi­ness con­fi­dence,” Jairam said. She added, how­ev­er, that SMEs still face ob­sta­cles in ac­cess­ing for­eign cur­ren­cy and nav­i­gat­ing com­plex VAT pro­ce­dures and called for re­forms to en­sure fair­ness and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in labour agree­ments.

The San Fer­nan­do Greater Cham­ber of Com­merce (SFGCC) al­so praised the Gov­ern­ment for re­duc­ing the price of Su­per gaso­line by $1 per litre, say­ing it will di­rect­ly ben­e­fit the small busi­ness sec­tor.

Pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh not­ed that trans­port re­mains a ma­jor cost item for MSMEs and that the mea­sure would help ease in­fla­tion­ary pres­sures and boost com­pet­i­tive­ness.

“The ten per cent pub­lic ser­vice salary in­crease will al­so have a pos­i­tive mul­ti­pli­er ef­fect on the re­tail sec­tor by in­creas­ing dis­pos­able in­come,” Singh said. He fur­ther sup­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to re­place VAT with a sales tax, ar­gu­ing it could sim­pli­fy ac­count­ing, im­prove cash flow, and re­duce ad­min­is­tra­tive bur­dens for small­er en­ter­pris­es.

Singh al­so backed the re­moval of VAT on agri­cul­tur­al in­puts and tax in­cen­tives for con­struc­tion, stat­ing that both mea­sures could stim­u­late in­vest­ment and job cre­ation. How­ev­er, he urged clar­i­ty on new cost mea­sures such as the pro­posed rental tax and the $0.05 elec­tri­cal sur­charge on com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al prop­er­ties, warn­ing these could raise op­er­at­ing costs for busi­ness­es.

In the north, the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (GT­CIC) de­scribed the bud­get as “a strong nar­ra­tive of re­form and ac­count­abil­i­ty” but urged that the Gov­ern­ment move be­yond rhetoric to mea­sur­able re­sults.
Pres­i­dent Ra­mon Gre­go­rio com­mend­ed ef­forts to mod­ernise tax­a­tion and digi­tise gov­ern­ment op­er­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly through the new NPICTT pay­ment sys­tem and the “Anan­si” vir­tu­al as­sis­tant, which he said could re­duce bu­reau­cra­cy and cor­rup­tion.

The GT­CIC al­so wel­comed the re­duc­tion in fu­el prices and the re­vival of en­er­gy projects such as the Drag­on Gas ini­tia­tive, say­ing these could help sta­bilise for­eign ex­change in­flows and na­tion­al con­fi­dence. But Gre­go­rio warned that ac­cess to for­eign ex­change re­mains “a press­ing chal­lenge” and called for a trans­par­ent al­lo­ca­tion mech­a­nism that sup­ports small man­u­fac­tur­ers.