GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The move by the UK gov­ern­ment, which re­quires all T&T na­tion­als to ac­quire a visa be­fore en­ter­ing that coun­try, has been de­scribed as “bizarre” by econ­o­mist Dr Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon.

Sev­er­al busi­ness cham­bers have al­so ex­pressed con­cern that the de­ci­sion could neg­a­tive­ly im­pact re­la­tions, with the coun­try’s largest busi­ness group urg­ing the T&T and UK gov­ern­ment to work to­geth­er to en­sure min­i­mal un­in­tend­ed dis­rup­tions.

Ar­joon said yes­ter­day that T&T is not a refugee-pro­duc­ing coun­try, so it was “bizarre” that there was such an in­flux of na­tion­als seek­ing asy­lum, lead­ing to this new visa re­quire­ment.

How­ev­er, he said while the re­quire­ment might low­er the num­ber of T&T na­tion­als vis­it­ing the UK as tourists, it should not ham­per the abil­i­ty of na­tion­als ac­quir­ing oth­er visas, like the stu­dent visa or the glob­al busi­ness mo­bil­i­ty visas, as those have par­tic­u­lar re­quire­ments to be met that are not like­ly to change.

But Ar­joon not­ed the de­ci­sion could ham­per the abil­i­ty of those who have to trav­el on short no­tice.

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce said while im­mi­gra­tion con­trol re­mains a sov­er­eign right of every na­tion, it recog­nised the con­cerns raised by lo­cal stake­hold­ers re­gard­ing the tim­ing and im­pli­ca­tions of this pol­i­cy shift.

“While we un­der­stand the de­ci­sion of the UK Home Of­fice, we do be­lieve this de­vel­op­ment may have the po­ten­tial to af­fect key ar­eas of bi­lat­er­al en­gage­ment, in­clud­ing trade, in­vest­ment, tourism, stu­dent mo­bil­i­ty and cul­tur­al ex­change,” it said.

The cham­ber said it was hope­ful the move will not have a spi­ralling ef­fect on the progress this coun­try has made un­der the Schen­gen visa ex­emp­tions se­cured with the Eu­ro­pean Union.

“We en­cour­age ef­forts to en­sure that the visa ap­pli­ca­tion process re­mains trans­par­ent, ef­fi­cient, and ac­ces­si­ble for all ap­pli­cants, par­tic­u­lar­ly those trav­el­ling for le­git­i­mate busi­ness, aca­d­e­m­ic, or fam­i­ly-re­lat­ed pur­pos­es,” it said, adding that it will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly and en­gage with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the British High Com­mis­sion and the Gov­ern­ment, to “as­sess the eco­nom­ic im­pli­ca­tions and ad­vo­cate for work­able so­lu­tions where nec­es­sary.”

Mean­while, the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) said it hoped the new mea­sure does not im­pose un­due de­lays or ad­min­is­tra­tive bur­dens, par­tic­u­lar­ly for in­di­vid­u­als trav­el­ling for busi­ness.

In a state­ment, the TTMA em­pha­sised that a smooth and ef­fi­cient visa ap­pli­ca­tion process was crit­i­cal to main­tain­ing strong trade and in­vest­ment ties. It said it trusts the process will be trans­par­ent, ef­fi­cient and ac­ces­si­ble en­sur­ing that le­git­i­mate trav­ellers can ob­tain their visas with­out un­nec­es­sary bu­reau­cra­cy, adding this is es­sen­tial to fa­cil­i­tat­ing trade mis­sions, in­vest­ment dis­cus­sions and oth­er com­mer­cial en­gage­ments that con­tribute to the eco­nom­ic growth of T&T and the UK.

‘Un­for­tu­nate move’

Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­mer­ce pres­i­dent An­janie Jairam yes­ter­day de­scribed the move as “un­for­tu­nate” for T&T’s cit­i­zens. She said this would im­pact the move­ment of “trade, ed­u­ca­tion and jus­tice,” which she said will now cause un­nec­es­sary de­lays by the new re­quire­ments for trav­el.

Jair­man said the need for a visa will al­so im­pact fam­i­ly life for lo­cals who have rel­a­tives re­sid­ing in the UK, adding this coun­try is “mov­ing in a back­ward di­rec­tion.”

How­ev­er, Jairam al­so not­ed that with bad be­hav­iour, “op­por­tu­ni­ty will be tak­en away from you.”

Cunu­pia Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Rashid Ali al­so agreed the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a visa to the UK will “def­i­nite­ly” in­crease the cost of do­ing busi­ness, and will neg­a­tive­ly im­pact trade.

He lament­ed that it will al­so af­fect train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties and any gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment arrange­ments re­gard­ing train­ing in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.