The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) is call­ing for the cre­ation of a Ser­vices Task­force, to en­sure the holis­tic and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of the Ser­vices Sec­tor in this coun­try.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment re­leased ear­li­er to­day, in which the or­gan­i­sa­tion shared its com­ments on the 2023 Bud­get, the TTC­SI pledged to work close­ly with the pro­posed Trinidad and To­ba­go Trade and In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency (TT­TI­PA), which is ex­pect­ed to be­come op­er­a­tional in 2023, and will fo­cus on pro­mot­ing ex­ports and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

The busi­ness lob­by al­so com­mend­ed Gov­ern­ment for its spe­cial recog­ni­tion of health care work­ers.  How­ev­er, it em­pha­sised that more at­ten­tion must be paid to “strength­en­ing the foun­da­tion of fam­i­lies and min­i­miz­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty in our so­ci­ety…”, not­ing that a na­tion­al ef­fort is need­ed in this re­gard.

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the state­ment re­leased by the TTC­SI, to­day…

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) wel­comes the Bud­get State­ment on the theme, “Tenac­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty in the face of glob­al chal­lenges”, de­liv­ered by the Ho­n­ourable Colm Im­bert, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, on Mon­day 26th Sep­tem­ber 2022. We note sev­er­al el­e­ments of rel­e­vance to the Ser­vices Sec­tor in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which we have the ho­n­our to rep­re­sent. With­in these chal­leng­ing times, the Gov­ern­ment has de­fined a bud­get which ac­knowl­edges the chal­lenges of the past year and seeks to present an op­ti­mistic out­look for the com­ing year.

New Trade and In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency

The TTC­SI ap­pre­ci­ates the an­nounce­ment of an amal­ga­mat­ed trade en­ti­ty, Trinidad and To­ba­go Trade and In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency (TT­TI­PA), to mod­ern­ize ex­ports and in­vest­ments. We look for­ward to work­ing with the new agency in 2023 to ad­vance the de­vel­op­ment of the ser­vices sec­tor. Based on our dis­cus­sions with the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, the TTC­SI will con­tin­ue to fo­cus on its man­date, which in­cludes en­sur­ing ser­vices providers and firms are ex­port ready. TTC­SI will work close­ly with the TT­TI­PA who will be re­spon­si­ble for mar­ket con­nec­tions and pro­mo­tion of the pool of ex­port ready ser­vice providers and firms, which have com­plet­ed both the Ser­vices Go Glob­al Train­ing Pro­gramme and the Gate­way to Trade Ex­port Ac­cel­er­a­tor Pro­gramme.

Recog­ni­tion of the Suc­cess of Gate­way to Trade Pro­gramme, Co­hort 1

We are al­so pleased that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance high­light­ed the im­por­tance of the Gate­way to Trade Pro­gramme. We look for­ward to the con­tin­ued ex­e­cu­tion of this pro­gramme in fis­cal 2023 and be­yond.

The ob­jec­tive is to cre­ate a cadre of glob­al­ly com­pet­i­tive ser­vice providers and firms in sub-sec­tors that have a demon­strat­ed com­par­a­tive ad­van­tage. These sub-sec­tors in­clude Busi­ness & Pro­fes­sion­al Ser­vices, Busi­ness & Events Tourism, En­er­gy Ser­vices, and ICT Ser­vices.

De­vel­op­ment of MSMEs

The an­nounce­ment of $500 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for a new long-term loan guar­an­tee scheme for small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es in part­ner­ship with com­mer­cial banks fo­cus­ing on the non-en­er­gy sec­tor is a good move. We rec­om­mend, how­ev­er, that cred­it unions—as a ma­jor part of the fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor—be in­clud­ed in this part­ner­ship through their rep­re­sen­ta­tive na­tion­al um­brel­la body.

Spe­cial Pay­ment to Health Care Work­ers

The TTC­SI com­mends the Gov­ern­ment for recog­ni­tion of the work of health sec­tor work­ers dur­ing the pan­dem­ic by al­lo­cat­ing the sum of $210 mil­lion for fis­cal 2023 as a spe­cial pay­ment ben­e­fit­ing over 20,000 work­ers.

Tourism Sec­tor

The TTC­SI is en­cour­aged by the sup­port for the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of the Tourism sec­tor es­pe­cial­ly for SMEs, and the Plan to re­fur­bish sites and at­trac­tions. How­ev­er, giv­en the an­nounced in­vest­ments to in­crease our ho­tel stock, we be­lieve that pri­or­i­ty must be giv­en to the re­open­ing of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute (TTHTI). The re­open­ing of the TTHTI would great­ly as­sist hote­liers who are chal­lenged with the un­avail­abil­i­ty of skilled work­ers to meet the needs of an in­dus­try that de­pends heav­i­ly on the de­liv­ery of qual­i­ty cus­tomer ser­vice.

Holis­tic ap­proach need­ed for Ser­vices to be­come a vi­able Forex Earn­er and eco­nom­ic dri­ver

Whilst we wel­come the fo­cus on Ser­vices, we con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for a holis­tic ap­proach to the de­vel­op­ment of ser­vices in the coun­try. On Sep­tem­ber 14, 2022, TTC­SI host­ed this coun­try’s In­au­gur­al Ser­vices Round­table. Our in­ten­tion was to bring to­geth­er all key stake­hold­ers in­clud­ing Cab­i­net Min­is­ters; we will con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate strong­ly for this ap­proach to be adopt­ed. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries strong­ly sup­ports the pro­pos­al pre­sent­ed by Globe Views Strate­gies, that is for the es­tab­lish­ment of a Ser­vices Task­force com­pris­ing key play­ers from Gov­ern­ment, the Pri­vate Sec­tor and Busi­ness Sup­port Or­ga­ni­za­tions. TTC­SI is pre­pared to take the lead on this.

Task­force

The pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tives of the Task­force must be –

1. De­vel­op a five-year Strate­gic Plan for the Go Glob­al TT Ser­vices ini­tia­tives of the TTC­SI

2. To pri­or­i­tize sup­port for Gate­way to Trade un­til 2026

3. The sup­port for high-lev­el trade mis­sions for G2T par­tic­i­pants in iden­ti­fied pri­or­i­ty mar­kets name­ly CARI­COM, North and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Africa and Eu­rope

4. The com­ple­tion of the Na­tion­al Ser­vices Strate­gic Plan

5. An eval­u­a­tion and as­sess­ment of the ecosys­tem gov­ern­ing ser­vices

6. Map­ping of the ser­vices port­fo­lio un­der­tak­en by all State Agen­cies and

7. The de­vel­op­ment of an Ac­tion Plan with clear de­liv­er­ables for the next three to five years.

In­sti­tu­tion­al Strength­en­ing

The Ser­vices Sec­tor rep­re­sents an enor­mous po­ten­tial game chang­er for Trinidad and To­ba­go. Over the past three years, TTC­SI has con­cen­trat­ed on the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Ser­vices Sec­tor com­pa­nies. To­day, we rep­re­sent over 65% of ac­tive ser­vices as­so­ci­a­tions in the coun­try. Fur­ther­more, TTC­SI has built a plat­form to GoGlob­al that in­volves ro­bust da­ta col­lec­tion on trade in ser­vices and the de­vel­op­ment of an in­ter­na­tion­al ser­vices hub, with lim­it­ed re­sources. Over­all, the TTC­SI con­sid­ers that this Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion has be­gun the process of lay­ing the foun­da­tion for the growth of the ser­vices sec­tor—specif­i­cal­ly, the de­vel­op­ment of ex­port-led strate­gies for the ser­vices sec­tor.

There must be fo­cused at­ten­tion, how­ev­er, on the so­cial fab­ric of our pop­u­la­tion with the aim of strength­en­ing the foun­da­tion of fam­i­lies and min­i­miz­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty in our so­ci­ety. Every cit­i­zen has a role to play in this re­gard."