Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go arm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has called for Mon­day’s na­tion­al Bud­get to fo­cus on key ar­eas that will un­lock the is­land’s eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial.

Chair­man Cur­tis Williams told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty wants to see spe­cif­ic al­lo­ca­tions to com­plete the new air­port ter­mi­nal ex­pan­sion and en­cour­age ho­tel in­vest­ments that can boost To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor.

“We’re talk­ing about treat­ing with the open­ing of the new ter­mi­nal build­ing. We’re talk­ing about putting some em­pha­sis on di­rect in­vest­ment in terms of ho­tels on the is­land,” Williams said. “So we’ve been boost­ing tourism in that area.”

(Para­phrase for clar­i­ty: Williams said the cham­ber wants the new ter­mi­nal opened and tar­get­ed sup­port for ho­tel de­vel­op­ment to help grow tourism.)

He said the cham­ber al­so wants Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress some of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA’s) fi­nan­cial chal­lenges by pro­vid­ing ad­di­tion­al fund­ing to help clear out­stand­ing debts.

“We’re al­so speak­ing about treat­ing with the THA and some of the debts that they have,” he said. “We def­i­nite­ly will want to see some of that hap­pen­ing in the space.”

Williams added that land li­cence re­form re­mains a ma­jor con­cern for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. He said in­vestors con­tin­ue to face bu­reau­crat­ic chal­lenges in ac­quir­ing prop­er­ty for de­vel­op­ment, and the cham­ber be­lieves giv­ing the THA con­trol over land li­cences could make the process more ef­fi­cient.

“We’re look­ing at if we can get the land li­cence to be con­trolled by the To­ba­go As­sem­bly,” Williams said. “So those are some of the low-hang­ing fruits we’re look­ing at in the new bud­get.”

The cham­ber’s call comes as To­ba­go hopes to re­ceive a high­er al­lo­ca­tion in the 2025–2026 na­tion­al bud­get. In June, the THA made it clear it would not ac­cept less than 5.9 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get as its share for the up­com­ing fis­cal year. In her first bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my Petal-Ann Roberts re­quest­ed $3.71 bil­lion based on a pro­ject­ed na­tion­al bud­get of $63.5 bil­lion. Last year, the THA re­quest­ed $3.9 bil­lion but re­ceived $2.59 bil­lion when the na­tion­al bud­get was read.

Williams said the cham­ber’s fo­cus re­mained on poli­cies and projects that can gen­er­ate re­al eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and in­vestor con­fi­dence on the is­land.