Be­fore he was ap­point­ed Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Dave Tan­coo was a large­ly un­known quan­ti­ty. The coun­try, as a whole, hadn’t quite ex­pe­ri­enced his po­lit­i­cal style or acu­men as an econ­o­mist.

Now, with the re­cent land­mark pre­sen­ta­tion of his first bud­get, Tan­coo has risen to the fore as a thor­ough­bred Fi­nance Min­is­ter. He spoke with au­thor­i­ty, dis­played cre­ativ­i­ty in mea­sur­ing up to the na­tion’s fis­cal chal­lenges and ini­ti­at­ed a new di­rec­tion for the coun­try’s econ­o­my. Cit­i­zens have con­fi­dence he is more than equal to the task. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is com­pli­ment­ed on her choice. Tan­coo has ar­rived.

And, as promised, he has placed di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion as cen­tral to his eco­nom­ic man­age­ment. I great­ly wel­come this. For ten years, I preached “di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion for new for­eign earn­ings” as in­dis­pens­able to this na­tion’s sal­va­tion.

The ur­gency is now fur­ther in­ten­si­fied, giv­en that while con­firm­ing the coun­try’s in­vest­ment grade rat­ing, Stan­dard & Poor’s has down­grad­ed our out­look to “neg­a­tive” and the IMF has pro­ject­ed eco­nom­ic growth of just one per cent this year.

No longer must agri­cul­ture stag­nate, says Tan­coo, con­tribut­ing less than one per cent of GDP. Now, in align­ment with Cari­com’s “25 by 2025” ini­tia­tive, this ad­min­is­tra­tion plans to re­duce food im­ports by at least 25 per cent by 2030, while pro­mot­ing agro-ex­ports.

Key mea­sures in­clude a three-year pri­or­i­ty com­modi­ties pro­gramme for 15 high-de­mand prod­ucts, with an­nu­al fo­cus on three crops and one live­stock cat­e­go­ry. Ex­port growth is ex­pect­ed in fine-flavour co­coa, Moru­ga pep­per, and aqua­cul­ture, dou­bling agro-ex­ports by 2028.

Mod­erni­sa­tion of the sec­tor is al­so planned with cli­mate-re­silient farm­ing and crop in­sur­ance, green­house in­cen­tives, and wa­ter-har­vest­ing sys­tems. Smart agri­cul­ture and AI farm­ing are ex­pect­ed to in­crease ef­fi­cien­cy and self-suf­fi­cien­cy, tar­get­ing $1 bil­lion in ex­ports next fis­cal year.

Sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment of $793.7 mil­lion is ear­marked for in­fra­struc­ture, ir­ri­ga­tion, fish­eries, land de­vel­op­ment, and agri-tech ini­tia­tives.

Agri­cul­ture will be in­te­grat­ed in­to schools and youth en­tre­pre­neur­ship through the Youth Agri­cul­tur­al Fund, and long-promised land leas­es are be­ing dis­trib­uted to for­mer Ca­roni work­ers. And em­pha­sis­ing part­ner­ships, Tan­coo says, “Agri­cul­ture, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and trade are part of the same ecosys­tem. To­geth­er, they will dri­ve di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, strength­en our econ­o­my, and make T&T food se­cure by 2030.”

Agri­cul­ture is on the way.

So is tourism, a high-growth sec­tor.

The Gov­ern­ment plans new prod­ucts in med­ical, sport, and cul­tur­al tourism; will fa­cil­i­tate the com­ple­tion of ho­tels, in­clud­ing Four Points, Hamp­ton Inn and Mara­cas Bay; and ad­vance To­ba­go’s Mar­riott and Ele­phant Tree Re­sorts.

The vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence will be mod­ernised through se­cure cash­less pay­ments and im­proved con­nec­tiv­i­ty. A year-round “Car­ni­val City” and the Tur­tle Tourism Cap­i­tal ini­tia­tive is en­vis­aged to in­te­grate cul­ture, con­ser­va­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty ben­e­fits.

Di­rect US flights to To­ba­go will strength­en ac­cess, and in­cen­tives for glob­al ho­tel brands are ex­pect­ed to spur for­eign in­vest­ment and job cre­ation.

Di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion plans en­vi­sion our ma­rine sec­tor be­ing repo­si­tioned as a south­ern Caribbean yacht­ing and ma­rine ser­vices hub. Sim­pli­fied im­mi­gra­tion and cus­toms pro­ce­dures, dig­i­tal clear­ances, and PPP-dri­ven mari­nas and su­per-yacht fa­cil­i­ties will ex­pand tourism and in­vest­ment.

The Gov­ern­ment’s in­vest­ment tar­gets in this sec­tor are US$3 bil­lion over two years and US$9 bil­lion in five years, aimed at cre­at­ing 3,000 jobs.

Ear­marked for de­vel­op­ment and which will al­so sup­port tourism is the or­ange econ­o­my in­volv­ing the cre­ative and cul­tur­al in­dus­tries. A cre­ative val­ue-chain fund is planned for sup­port­ing film, fash­ion, de­sign, and mu­sic. En­hanced in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty pro­tec­tion and du­ty con­ces­sions will em­pow­er cre­atives and gen­er­ate thou­sands of jobs.

Tan­coo ac­knowl­edges that “we can­not build growth with­out part­ner­ship” and talks of the new Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T, which will unite cham­bers and as­so­ci­a­tions to co­or­di­nate in­vest­ment and dri­ve in­no­va­tion.

And to pro­mote trade di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, there are planned stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tions for fis­cal 2026 to in­form sec­toral ex­port strate­gies.

The Gov­ern­ment will im­ple­ment the Na­tion­al E-Com­merce Strat­e­gy 2025–2030 and fi­nalise the Na­tion­al Con­sumer Pol­i­cy. It will op­er­a­tionalise the TT–Chile Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment, grant­i­ng du­ty-free ac­cess for 213 lo­cal prod­ucts im­me­di­ate­ly and 54 more with­in three years. Sim­i­lar agree­ments with In­dia and West African coun­tries will grant du­ty-free ac­cess for over 260 lo­cal prod­ucts with­in three years.

Per­haps, most crit­i­cal of all is Tan­coo’s recog­ni­tion that di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion de­pends on com­pet­i­tive busi­ness­es. A new Ex­port Acad­e­my, in part­ner­ship with the T&T Cham­ber of Com­merce and the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank is be­ing de­vel­oped to train small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) in trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, fi­nanc­ing, e-com­merce, and glob­al mar­ket­ing, build­ing 100 ex­port-ready firms every year. Won­der­ful!

This is a ma­jor step to­ward, cre­at­ing glob­al­ly com­pet­i­tive ex­porters, says the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce.

“With mod­ernised cus­toms sys­tems and sim­pli­fied trade pro­ce­dures, this could help repo­si­tion T&T as a re­gion­al ex­port hub.”

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Ex­im­bank will re­turn to its prop­er man­date of sup­port­ing ex­porters through for­eign-cur­ren­cy loans. Trans­par­ent el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria and pub­lic re­port­ing will en­sure fair­ness, es­pe­cial­ly for SMEs. The Gov­ern­ment will launch a na­tion­al reg­istry of ex­porters and a pa­tri­ot­ic “Buy Lo­cal, Build Trin­ba­go” cam­paign to keep wealth at home.

The above is a fair­ly wide-rang­ing plan to em­bark on the long-need­ed di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion path for T&T. It brings hope for eco­nom­ic re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion and sus­tained growth. It says one thing most em­phat­i­cal­ly to T&T.

Dave Tan­coo has ar­rived.