With days away from the 2024 bud­get to be pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, the ser­vices sec­tor says the path to­wards eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion for T&T must in­clude the ac­tive in­volve­ment of this in­dus­try.

The T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) pre­sent­ed its bud­get rec­om­men­da­tions, which it be­lieves will lay the foun­da­tion for growth of the in­dus­try specif­i­cal­ly the de­vel­op­ment of ex­port-led strate­gies.

These ini­tia­tives were cat­e­gorised as:

• Mea­sures to stim­u­late growth of the ser­vices sec­tor;

• Mea­sures to pro­tect the vul­ner­a­ble;

• Mea­sures for im­proved reg­u­la­tions and stan­dards; and

• Sup­port for firms im­pact­ed by COVID-19

Re­gard­ing mea­sures to stim­u­late growth of the sec­tor, the TTC­SI not­ed that in Sep­tem­ber 2021, it launched this coun­try’s first Na­tion­al Go Glob­al TT Ser­vices ini­tia­tive which com­prised five core projects.

The busi­ness sup­port or­gan­i­sa­tion de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as a game chang­er for the econ­o­my, re­it­er­at­ing that there is need for con­tin­u­ous sup­port to re­alise these full ben­e­fits.

It is for these rea­sons that the TTC­SI said it is seek­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port to con­tin­ue the projects un­til fis­cal 2025.

The projects are a bian­nu­al na­tion­al ser­vices ex­porters sur­vey; the na­tion­al ser­vices ex­porters por­tal; the gate­way to trade ex­port ac­cel­er­a­tor project; the ser­vices go glob­al train­ing pro­gramme and the an­nu­al Caribbean Lawrence Placide award.

On im­prov­ing of the green build­ing sec­tor, the TTC­SI is ad­vis­ing that ac­tion be tak­en to fos­ter green build­ing prac­tices.

It out­lined that this should in­clude con­ces­sions and tax breaks for im­port­ing green-build­ing prod­ucts and ser­vices; tax re­bates to green-build­ing own­ers and green-build­ing de­vel­op­ers to en­cour­age more ac­tiv­i­ty and make it more fea­si­ble for them to en­gage in the area and re­duce im­port du­ties on cer­ti­fied and sus­tain­able ma­te­r­i­al for do­ing green build­ings.

The TTC­SI al­so not­ed there is a great po­ten­tial for coun­tries to achieve their net ze­ro en­er­gy goals by us­ing green build­ings which can re­sult in 50 per cent en­er­gy sav­ings, ac­cord­ing to an UNDP re­port.

The cre­ative sec­tor is al­so an in­stru­men­tal part of the ser­vices sec­tor.

To bol­ster it, the TTC­SI wants a pol­i­cy to en­sure and en­cour­age par­tic­i­pa­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al mu­sic ex­pos and busi­ness fo­rums.

It ex­plained that such par­tic­i­pa­tion should not be lim­it­ed to per­for­mances by a few artistes cho­sen, ex­plain­ing that there must be the in­volve­ment of mu­sic busi­ness man­agers, agen­cies, pub­li­cists, pro­duc­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors as with any oth­er trade mis­sion.

There is al­so a call to es­tab­lish a na­tion­al mu­se­um for ca­lyp­so mu­sic his­to­ry as an ac­tive part in the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um for the Car­ni­val Arts and In­dus­try.

The TTC­SI al­so ad­vised there be a Car­ni­val theme park to stim­u­late ac­tive tourism and gen­er­ate year-round em­ploy­ment for artistes and ar­ti­sans in the cre­ative sec­tor.

Oth­er rec­om­men­da­tions to fur­ther pro­pel the cre­ative sec­tor in­clude an in­crease in the grant sub­ven­tion for film-mak­ers to at least $3 mil­lion; com­mit $3 mil­lion to cre­at­ing a T&T An­thol­o­gy An­i­mat­ed Se­ries for Net­flix or oth­er stream­ing plat­forms; con­tin­ue to fas­track the seam­stress and tai­lor train­ing to fa­cil­i­tate lo­cal de­sign­ers as well as the pro­duc­tion of de­sign lines; es­tab­lish month­ly craft­marts in pub­lic venues for lo­cal crafts­men and mi­cro-en­tre­pre­neurs and rat­i­fy the land tenure of all pan yards on State land as per the Cab­i­net Note to that ef­fect cir­ca 2012, among oth­ers.

Im­prov­ing the an­i­ma­tion and game de­vel­op­ment sec­tors was al­so rec­om­mend­ed by the TTC­SI.

Lo­cal an­i­ma­tion con­tin­ues to make strides as the TTC­SI not­ed that its mem­ber, An­i­mae Caribe Fes­ti­val, re­cent­ly rep­re­sent­ed the in­dus­try at An­necy Film Fes­ti­val in France, as it cel­e­brat­ed the 46th edi­tion of this in­ter­na­tion­al an­i­ma­tion film fes­ti­val which took place from June 13 to 18, as well as the KID­SCREEN Sum­mit in Mi­a­mi from Ju­ly 17 to 21.

In craft­ing the way for­ward for the an­i­ma­tion and game in­dus­try the TTC­SI said a hub for an­i­ma­tion jobs ought to be cre­at­ed.

“With the growth of the an­i­ma­tion sec­tor, a pletho­ra of job op­por­tu­ni­ties will open up. De­pend­ing up­on whether the job is en­try-lev­el or se­nior-lev­el, the salary of the job will vary but still it will be lu­cra­tive. In­ter­est­ing­ly, most of the peo­ple work­ing in the an­i­ma­tion sec­tor are self-em­ployed.

An an­i­ma­tion job can be di­vid­ed in­to de­vel­op­ment, pre-pro­duc­tion, pro­duc­tion, post-pro­duc­tion, and sales and mar­ket­ing,” the TTC­SI ex­plained.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTC­SI, the yacht­ing in­dus­try needs more land in the Ch­aguara­mas area (lim­it­ed to on­ly 2.2 square miles at present) for ex­pan­sion and growth sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

There is al­so need to in­tro­duce the much-need­ed sin­gle har­monised form for huge­ly sim­pli­fied en­try and de­par­ture of yachts to/from T&T as in Grena­da, St Vin­cent, An­tigua, Guyana, St Lu­cia, St Kitts, St Maarten and in every oth­er Caribbean is­land.

The YSATT is al­so call­ing for more ad­ver­tis­ing aid from the Min­istry of Tourism not­ing that it of­fice is al­so a tourist in­for­ma­tion cen­tre.

The TTC­SI is propos­ing that the Cou­va Tabaquite Tal­paro re­gion be de­vel­oped and des­ig­nat­ed as a Green Zone.

The goal is to de­vel­op a busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment that is con­ducive to en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion.

The TTC­SI not­ed that the re­gion where the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate is lo­cat­ed con­sists of some of the most di­verse fea­tures, - nat­ur­al beau­ty (six beach­es, unique ecosys­tems, bird watch­ing), na­tion­al sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties (Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre, Aquat­ic Cen­tre and Cy­cling Velo­drome), and his­tor­i­cal sites (Sug­ar Her­itage Vil­lage, Tem­ple in the Sea, Caribbean In­di­an Mu­se­um).

This makes it an ide­al site for cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able Green Zone in line with COP 27 ini­tia­tives, the TTC­SI added.

“This project pro­vides a mean­ing­ful and valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty to im­pact the lives of the com­mu­ni­ties in this re­gion and T&T gen­er­al­ly. Green­ing the zone would pro­vide a struc­tured and mon­i­tored ap­proach to reg­u­late prop­er waste dis­pos­al and man­age­ment, re­cy­cling, and en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy among com­pa­nies of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

“Apart from these in­dus­tri­al com­pa­nies, there are nu­mer­ous MSMEs (ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,015) and skilled in­di­vid­ual pro­fes­sion­als from re­pair shops to stand­alone tech­ni­cians, whose busi­ness mod­els can pro­mote and reg­u­late re­cy­cling, re­pair­ing and re-us­ing ini­tia­tives,” the TTC­SI fur­ther ex­plained.

It al­so not­ed that the qual­i­ty of na­tion­al goods and ser­vices will con­form to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards, en­sur­ing high qual­i­ty and rais­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty stan­dards which con­sti­tute two of the most im­por­tant pre­req­ui­sites for in­creas­ing the com­pet­i­tive­ness of lo­cal busi­ness­es.

The TTC­SI has al­so sug­gest­ed mea­sures to pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of so­ci­ety. These in­clude es­tab­lish­ing child­care cen­tres at min­istries and oth­er State en­ter­pris­es which will pro­vide sup­port for work­ing par­ents es­pe­cial­ly sin­gle moth­ers. Safe hous­es for vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence abuse should al­so be es­tab­lished as the TTC­SI not­ed there has been an in­crease in the num­ber of re­port­ed do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es in the last two years.

Oth­er sug­ges­tions in­clude of­fer­ing free in­ter­net ser­vices and IT ed­u­ca­tion for all se­nior cit­i­zens to fa­cil­i­tate their bank­ing and pay­ment of bills.

The TTC­SI as­sists in the de­vel­op­ment of stan­dards and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to fa­cil­i­tate ac­cess in­to for­eign mar­kets.

For im­proved reg­u­la­tions and stan­dards the TTC­SI has rec­om­mend­ed de­vel­op­ing pest man­age­ment in­dus­try stan­dards (Code of Prac­tice) and reg­u­la­tions.

“Leg­is­la­tion that would en­sure pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the rel­a­tive in­dus­tries on ad­vi­so­ry boards and draft­ing com­mit­tees,” the TTC­SI ex­plained.

It is al­so call­ing for full im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Pro­cure­ment Leg­is­la­tion and Reg­u­la­tions with no re­port­ing or in­ves­tiga­tive ex­cep­tions as well as the use of li­censed pro­fes­sion­als from as­so­ci­a­tions to con­duct busi­ness through­out the Gov­ern­ment sec­tor.