RHON­DOR DOWLAT

The To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber is call­ing for the "im­me­di­ate and un­con­di­tion­al" re­peal of the For­eign In­vest­ment Act in an at­tempt to wean To­ba­go off the fi­nan­cial um­bil­i­cal cord by which they are tied to Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

The call was made on Thurs­day by the pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Cham­ber at­tor­ney Mar­tin George.

George said they want to en­cour­age for­eign in­vest­ment, "but we must do it in a struc­tures way...make it manda­to­ry that any­one in­vest­ing in To­ba­go must part­ner at least up to ten per cent with a lo­cal To­ba­go-based busi­ness."

"That way you earn and get the for­eign ex­change by the di­rect for­eign in­vest­ment and you al­so get that trans­fer of knowl­edge where our To­ba­go-based busi­ness­es get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn hands-on from big­ger, more ex­pe­ri­enced busi­ness per­sons," he added.

George al­so pro­posed that the gov­ern­ment seek to ex­pand the CEPEP and URP pro­grammes to cre­ate ded­i­cat­ed agro-in­dus­try sec­tions which can serve as or­ga­nized struc­tured gov­ern­ment farm work­ers.

"We'd like to see this as part of an Agrar­i­an awak­en­ing for To­ba­go and for Trinidad al­so. So let's cre­ate a CEPEP - Agro-Di­vi­sion and a URP Agri-Sec­tor. Let's uti­lize our fer­tile lands, our rich soil and har­ness the tal­ents of our peo­ple. Let's use the sci­ence, the tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate su­per pro­duc­tive farms through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go."

"Let's cre­ate a ded­i­cat­ed agri-di­vi­sion in CEPEP and URP so we will in­crease the pay but do so in a man­ner linked to in­creased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and in­creased agri­cul­tur­al out­put," he added.

George al­so called for To­ba­go a VAT free/du­ty-free zone.

This he said will lead to a mas­sive in­flux of for­eign ex­change and in­vest­ment and busi­ness in To­ba­go.

"To­ba­go will be­come the re­tire­ment cap­i­tal of the Caribbean, in much the same way Flori­da is the re­tire­ment State of the USA."

"We would like to wean To­ba­go off the fi­nan­cial um­bil­i­cal cord by which they are tied to Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment. This will re­quire a medi­um to long-term plan but we need to make a start," George said.