The Confederation of Regional Business Chambers is throwing its support behind the new Governor of the Central Bank, Larry Howai. The Confederation's Chairman was speaking on TV6's Morning Edition programme. Here's more from Dominic Ramroop.
00:00Chairman of the Confederation of Regional Business Chambers, Vivek Charan, is expressing the Confederation's support for the newly appointed Governor of the Central Bank, Larry Hawaii, who has been given a full five-year term in the position.
00:13Well, first of all, you know, we support the appointment of the new Governor, Larry Hawaii. We believe has worked in the government before. He has synergy with the Prime Minister. He has, after all, been the Minister of Finance.
00:26Charan says that questions need to be asked about the current Forex distribution system, and an assessment of the system is needed.
00:33I mean, let's ask some questions here. Is the Forex distribution system broken? Is it skewed? Is it partisan? These are all allegations that have been levelled at the distribution of Forex for the last 10 years.
00:48And the only way to actually answer those questions would be to, you know, for the Governor of the Central Bank to go in there, for the government, as they have done, to ask for all the information with regard to Forex allocation over the previous 10 years,
01:04in order to determine what was the pattern of distribution? What was the possible strategy behind that pattern? Is it deficient? Was it deficient? Does it need changing? Based on the demands of the public, based on the demands of business, based on what people have been saying and asking for, should it be changed? And this is the actual way forward.
01:31He is also wondering aloud how the country has found itself in a precarious position, with the Forex reserves at its lowest point ever.
01:39The issue is between 2015 to now, what really happened to our Forex? And you see, you know, what is, you know, what is, uh, what we have questions about as well, is that during the COVID lockdown period,
01:5580%, so we're looking over 10 years, man, 80% of retail businesses were locked down for almost two years or more.
02:03The economy didn't really reopen until, let's say, late 2022. And what that would mean, Marlon, is that Forex demand would have fallen drastically, right, over a two-year period.
02:18Forex demand would have fallen drastically. But the government would still have been earning, you know, some Forex, manufacturing was still working.
02:26As such, Charon is welcoming Hawaii's stance of transparency and his aim of finding the best utilisation for the limited foreign exchange reserves.
02:36If the governor has said that how he wants to be more transparent and he wants to be more, um, how should we put it, he wants to, to, to be more open about the Forex situation, then certainly we welcome that.
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