An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ang­ie Jairam is of the strong view that float­ing the dol­lar will take in­fla­tion up.

Speak­ing at the cham­ber’s Christ­mas din­ner over the week­end at Paria Suites Ho­tel, Jairam said it has been re­it­er­at­ed in many sec­tors that in­vest­ment must be done in the agri­cul­ture, tech­nol­o­gy, ed­u­ca­tion, and tourism sec­tors to be­come for­eign ex­change earn­ers and come away from the de­pen­den­cy of oil and gas.

“The for­eign ex­change is­sues—have test­ed us all. These is­sues don’t just af­fect our bal­ance sheets; they im­pact our lives, our fam­i­lies, and our com­mu­ni­ties. But de­spite these hard­ships, I am con­tin­u­ous­ly in­spired by the cre­ativ­i­ty, tenac­i­ty, and re­source­ful­ness that our busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and by ex­ten­sion, our cit­i­zens apt­ly demon­strate every day,” Jairam stressed.

On Mon­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment will not bow to “spe­cial in­ter­est pres­sure” to de­val­ue the TT dol­lar.

Speak­ing on the for­eign ex­change is­sue for the first time yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said the pres­sure to de­val­ue was com­ing from peo­ple who large­ly have for­eign ex­change.

He said de­val­u­a­tion will in­crease costs and make those with for­eign ex­change wealth­i­er.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dr Mahin­dra Ramesh Ramdeen said that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty needs to as­sert it­self in the ex­port mar­ket and that earn­ing its for­eign ex­change is of para­mount im­por­tance in to­day’s en­vi­ron­ment, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the chal­lenges of the coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor.

“SMES ought can­not con­tin­ue to de­pend on the Cen­tral Bank to be the provider of their needs con­cern­ing Forex. There is a role still for the gov­ern­ment to play and it is to be the best fa­cil­i­ta­tor, but don’t crowd out the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty from the mar­ket­place.”

He iden­ti­fied crime as be­ing a ma­jor ob­sta­cle for small busi­ness op­er­a­tions and mov­ing to­ward a dig­i­tal frame­work that would al­low for speed of ex­e­cu­tion of busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties and Con­ges­tion on the Road.

Ramdeen ad­vised the au­di­ence to get in­volved in man­u­fac­tur­ing, he not­ed that the de­f­i­n­i­tion of man­u­fac­tur­ing is broad and wide and that many tra­di­tion­al im­porters have moved in this di­rec­tion to pre­serve the ex­pen­di­ture of FX, while at the same time earn­ing FX through ex­port­ing. He em­pha­sised that you don’t have to pro­duce an item from scratch to qual­i­fy as a man­u­fac­tur­er and so reap all the re­wards of du­ty-free con­ces­sions, ex­port­ing to part­ner coun­tries du­ty-free, and be­ing a bene­fac­tor for var­i­ous funds such as the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion grant, Re­search, and De­vel­op­ment Grant, ex­port pro­mo­tion in­cen­tives.

No wage hikes for of­fice hold­ers

Jairam said the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s (SRC) re­port propos­ing wage hikes for 950 state of­fi­cials across 325 cat­e­gories of of­fices should not even be a thought on the ta­ble at this time.

“Peo­ple are al­ready un­der deep stress to man­age their dai­ly sur­vival, mak­ing sac­ri­fices at every lev­el. I was at some busi­ness place and heard an em­ploy­ee ask­ing if she could find out if the pay­roll clerk paid week­ly salaries...he has to pay an in­stall­ment, and that’s the re­al­i­ty on the ground with many sto­ries. Busi­ness­es and cit­i­zens should make sac­ri­fices but with the hope that their lives will be im­proved not to fur­ther suf­fer or have less. Gov­ern­ments have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to im­prove ser­vices and as­sist busi­ness­es and cit­i­zens to seek out op­por­tu­ni­ties and feel safe to take risks and be suc­cess­ful for the ben­e­fit of all stake­hold­ers, she lament­ed.