An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Some busi­ness cham­bers say the for­eign ex­change chal­lenges out­lined in the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce sur­vey are noth­ing new.

Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ang­ie Jairam says the chal­lenges with forex did not start last month, there­fore the T&T Cham­ber sur­vey pro­vid­ed is noth­ing new. She said mem­bers are fac­ing dif­fi­cul­ty pay­ing off their for­eign bills and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions are not pro­vid­ing them with the US cur­ren­cy to set­tle their bills.

“Ca­roni Ltd has closed down, what have suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments done to en­sure our re­serves will be main­tained or man­aged? Then comes the clo­sure of Petrotrin.

“The ques­tion is, what did the gov­ern­ment put in place to earn forex in their plans to close the in­dus­tries ... very lit­tle or noth­ing,” Jairam said.

Chair­man of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers Vivek Char­ran said while the cham­ber agrees with some of the find­ings, much more than 111 busi­ness­es are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the forex crunch.

“We’ve had busi­ness own­ers who were coura­geous enough to say that they’re clos­ing some of their branch­es, be­cause of oth­er rea­sons, but al­so be­cause of the forex short­age. The good thing about this is that by more peo­ple speak­ing up and be­ing hon­est about the sit­u­a­tion, it gives ac­cu­rate  feed­back, be­cause ob­vi­ous­ly if not enough peo­ple speak out, or if not enough peo­ple re­spond to sur­veys like this, gives the im­pres­sion that the prob­lem is not large.”

Char­ran said the coun­try does not just need larg­er busi­ness­es to con­tin­ue ex­port­ing more but a much more ro­bust and wider man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

“There must be the en­vi­ron­ment and the in­cen­tives for them to be able to make the change,” he said.

Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce di­rec­tor Ja­son Roach (Com­mer­cial Af­fairs) said the re­al­i­ty is con­trary to the de­f­i­n­i­tion of an es­sen­tial busi­ness, prod­uct, or ser­vice, and it is very clear that many are re­ceiv­ing forex that does not meet the cri­te­ri­on be­ing bandied about.  

“There are many busi­ness­es that are re­ceiv­ing forex for rea­sons oth­er than what the term es­sen­tial sug­gests. Some busi­ness­es are get­ting pri­ori­tised based on re­la­tion­ships through fi­nan­cial com­mit­ments such as loans and fi­nanc­ing. As a cham­ber, we are pre­pared to par­tic­i­pate in any na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion to de­vel­op a pol­i­cy we can all agree to on the is­sue of forex al­lo­ca­tion pri­ori­ti­sa­tion. We need to re-ex­am­ine the de­f­i­n­i­tion of what is es­sen­tial or who is es­sen­tial,” Roach ex­plained.

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj said while he com­mends the T&T Cham­ber, the con­ver­sa­tion around forex avail­abil­i­ty and eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion is not new.

“For years, the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber has called on a prop­er for­eign ex­change pol­i­cy with a pre­dictable al­lo­ca­tion frame­work for SMEs. This would al­low busi­ness­es to man­age their op­er­a­tions more ef­fec­tive­ly, plan sup­pli­er pay­ments, and fore­cast growth op­por­tu­ni­ties with greater con­fi­dence,” Ma­haraj said.

He added that pre­dictabil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in forex dis­tri­b­u­tion are im­por­tant for build­ing the SME sec­tor and en­sur­ing their con­tin­ued con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.  

“The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber strong­ly sup­ports the re­port rec­om­men­da­tion, in­clud­ing pri­ori­tis­ing SMEs for forex al­lo­ca­tion, and en­cour­ag­ing eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion through in­vest­ment in sec­tors such as agri­cul­ture, re­new­able en­er­gy, ICT, and man­u­fac­tur­ing. Ch­agua­nas, with its grow­ing agri-pro­cess­ing and knowl­edge-based in­dus­try, is well po­si­tioned to lead in these ef­forts and we call for tar­get­ed in­vest­ments,” he said.