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  • 1 year ago


The Finance Minister announced today that the EximBank Forex Window for the importation of essential items has been resumed after careful review.

The Minister also said the restructured format took effect from Friday, November 1st.

This, as one Opposition MP says billions of U.S. dollars have been sold to authorized dealers and nobody knows what they have done with it".

Meanwhile, the Finance Minister says the special forex window has cost millions of U.S. dollars each month over the past four years.

Juhel Browne reports.
Transcript
00:00On Sunday, Oropucho West MP Devendranath Thanku gave the opposition's calculation regarding
00:06what the UNC and several business owners are calling a foreign exchange or forex crisis
00:12in Trinidad and Tobago.
00:14Since this government has been in office, 14 billion US dollars has been sold to authorized
00:21dealers and nobody knows what they have done with it.
00:25Nobody knows who they have given it to.
00:28All of this while legitimate clients, legitimate businesses have been made to beg, have been
00:36made to plead for a few hundred US dollars at a time.
00:40Later on Sunday, Finance Minister Colm Imbeth issued a statement via the Finance Ministry
00:45in which he did not make any mention of the opposition, but did provide a calculation
00:51of his own.
00:52The Finance Minister said the special forex window at the Ex-Im Bank for Essential Imports
00:58has consumed US $30 million monthly over the last four years since its inception in 2020.
01:07The Finance Minister made the point as he announced that after careful consideration
01:12and a comprehensive review by the Ministry of Finance and the Ex-Im Bank over the last
01:17month, Cabinet at its regular weekly meeting last week on Friday, November 1st, agreed
01:23to a recommendation from the Finance Minister.
01:27The recommendation, according to the Minister, was that the forex window at the Ex-Im Bank
01:32for Essential Imports, which was created by the Ministry of Finance in 2020 in response
01:37to an urgent and critical need during the COVID-19 pandemic, be resumed in a restructured
01:43format.
01:45Minister Imbeth said the base dataset used for the review was the final list of zero-rated
01:50items that came into effect on February 1st, 2016, by the Value-Added Tax Order 2016, that
01:58is, items not manufactured in Trinidad and Tobago and items not specifically pandemic-related.
02:05The Finance Minister then declared items outside of these definitions should not be considered
02:10essential and should not qualify for preferential access to the government's foreign exchange
02:16through the Ex-Im Bank.
02:18The Finance Minister said it had been decided that the list of foods, pharmaceuticals and
02:23essential hygiene products, such as sanitary napkins and pads, which qualified for this
02:28special forex window from 2020 to September 2024, will remain unchanged going forward.
02:35However, Minister Imbeth said it will be subject to periodic review to see whether, for example,
02:41retaining borderline food items on the margin between essential and non-essential, such
02:46as sausages, is arguable.
02:49The Finance Minister said that, for the avoidance of doubt, COVID-19 pandemic-related items,
02:54such as hand soap, toothpaste, face masks, deodorant, respirators and hand sanitizers,
03:02are no longer considered to be essential imports.
03:05Minister Imbeth said that, in this context, the role and impact of locally manufactured
03:10products which substitute for imports are being carefully examined and greater access
03:15to forex for inputs for local consumption will be considered shortly.
03:21The Finance Minister said the government's allocation of US dollars to the Ex-Im Bank
03:26for this essential imports facility will now be US $25 million per month, a US $5 million
03:34reduction from the COVID-19 list of imports.
03:38Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
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