JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

TTMA happy with Budget growth projection

by

996 days ago
20220926
Tricia Coosal, President of the TTMA.  (Image: SHIRLEY BAHADUR)

Tricia Coosal, President of the TTMA. (Image: SHIRLEY BAHADUR)

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has re­spond­ed to the con­tri­bu­tion of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert’s read­ing of the Na­tion­al Bud­get, “Tenac­i­ty and Sta­bil­i­ty in the face of Glob­al Chal­lenges”, to­day in Par­lia­ment.

Pres­i­dent of the TTMA Tri­cia Coos­al stat­ed that the As­so­ci­a­tion com­mends the Gov­ern­ment on the part­ner­ship and di­a­logue it con­tin­ues to have with the pri­vate sec­tor to en­sure the econ­o­my con­tin­ues to sta­bilise and grow fol­low­ing the im­pact of COVID-19 and the on­go­ing Rus­sia-Ukraine war as ev­i­denced by the an­nounce­ment of an ex­pect­ed re­vised re­al GDP growth of 2% and growth of the non-en­er­gy sec­tor by the same 2%.

Coos­al com­ment­ed, “The im­por­tance of en­sur­ing the Ease of Do­ing Busi­ness was once again stressed by the Min­is­ter via the pledge of dig­i­ti­za­tion though the strength­en­ing of the Sin­gle Elec­tron­ic Win­dow and im­ple­men­ta­tion of the elec­tron­ic fund trans­fer frame­work to al­low busi­ness­es to make pay­ments to the Gov­ern­ment by the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty … these are need­ed and wel­comed ini­tia­tives.”

Coos­al al­so not­ed, “TTMA has ad­vo­cat­ed for a more ef­fi­cient tax col­lect­ing mech­a­nism, stress­ing the im­por­tance of widen­ing the tax net as op­posed to fur­ther bur­den­ing the al­ready com­pli­ant pop­u­la­tion of the coun­try. In this re­gard the TTMA looks for­ward to op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty in 2023 and an­tic­i­pates that this fa­cil­i­ty would al­low for greater ef­fi­cien­cies in the tax col­lec­tion.”

In an ef­fort to as­sist busi­ness on in­dus­tri­al parks, Coos­al not­ed “The As­so­ci­a­tion looks for­ward to Phase 3 of the mod­ern state of the art in­dus­tri­al park - Phoenix Park. The an­nounce­ment of Phase 3 and the even­tu­al roll out of a trade and ex­hi­bi­tion cen­tre at the in­dus­tri­al es­tate is wel­comed as many syn­er­gies ex­ist with TTMA’s an­nu­al Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion.”

Coos­al ac­knowl­edged, “The Gov­ern­ment’s ini­tia­tive to fur­ther the op­er­a­tional­iza­tion of the Man­u­fac­tur­ing Ap­pren­tice­ship pro­gramme and the Ex­port Boost­er Ini­tia­tive as well as in­creas­ing the al­lot­ment of the For­eign Ex­change fa­cil­i­ty at EX­IM Bank are pleas­ing de­liv­er­ables. The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to sig­nal the trust it places in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor to con­tin­ue with­in a frame­work or pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship to lead the charge on di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the econ­o­my as ev­i­dent by the 17% in­crease in ex­ports. We look for­ward to the specifics of the EX­IM fa­cil­i­ty, which has worked re­al­ly well for the SME ex­porters among our mem­ber­ship.”

The TTMA said it sup­ports the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to the CARI­COM Heads of Gov­ern­ment goal to re­duce the re­gion’s ex­port bill by 25% by 2025 via the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion of $300 Mil­lion in­to agri­cul­ture in­cen­tive and in­fra­struc­ture pro­grammes to as­sist with food se­cu­ri­ty and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in the agro pro­cess­ing sub-sec­tor of man­u­fac­tur­ing. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the re­bate of $25,000.00 for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of re­new­able wind and so­lar en­er­gy in agri­cul­ture will sup­port the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of this sec­tor.

It al­so ap­plaud­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to SMEs via the in­jec­tion of $500 Mil­lion – in part­ner­ship with com­mer­cial banks - for long term guar­an­tee schemes for SMEs, guar­an­tee­ing 80% of loans for up to 10 years. This guar­an­tee, cou­pled with the in­crease in the max­i­mum fund­ing of ex­porTT’s Grand Fund Fa­cil­i­ty from $250,000 to $340,000, will work to strength­en SMEs’ com­pet­i­tive­ness and in­crease their con­tri­bu­tion to the ex­ports of the non-en­er­gy sec­tor.

Coos­al not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment’s an­nounce­ment of VAT pay­ments of $4 Bil­lion in 2022, how­ev­er, she added, “The As­so­ci­a­tion hopes the dis­burse­ment of VAT re­fund con­tin­ues rapid­ly in the com­ing fis­cal since the SME sec­tor specif­i­cal­ly suf­fers sig­nif­i­cant­ly from cash flow when pay­ments are out­stand­ing. As a re­sult, TTMA looks for­ward to a con­tin­ued roll out for its mem­bers, in a time­ly man­ner, for fis­cal 2022-2023.

Min­is­ter Im­bert is sched­uled to par­tic­i­pate in a post-bud­get event with TTMA mem­ber­ship to­mor­row, to dis­cuss how the new mea­sures are go­ing to help the sec­tor. We look for­ward to this en­gage­ment where many ques­tions will be asked and an­swers will be pro­vid­ed by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and oth­er lead­ing ex­perts.

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

Budget


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored