00:00To sustain our economy, the demand for foreign exchange is well over 6,000 million U.S. dollars a year.
00:09Central Bank Governor Larry Hawaii speaking with the media on Thursday
00:13as he responded to a question from the Express newspaper about whether there is a local foreign exchange crisis.
00:20It's just short of 6 billion, which is 6,000 million U.S. is sold in Trinidad and Tobago.
00:28That is more than all the rest of the islands, including Jamaica combined.
00:33About 4.5 billion, which the commercial banks buy.
00:38Governor Hawaii said the Central Bank provides 1.2 billion U.S. dollars.
00:44It's getting to the point where you, the public, have more foreign exchange than us, the Central Bank.
00:51Mr. Hawaii was appointed as the Central Bank Governor on June 24th
00:55and has identified the Forex issue as a priority.
00:59Credit cards were using 765 million a year of all foreign exchange reserves back in 2015.
01:09It is now 2,317 million.
01:14Now, 2,000 million is plenty of money, right?
01:18And as U.S. dollars, right, that we are spending abroad as citizens on an ongoing basis.
01:26TV6 News posed a question about the closing quarter of 2025.
01:31How does the Central Bank deal with the policy for the distribution of Forex at a time like that
01:39when you have the importation of goods for the key shopping seasons,
01:44but also persons who may be flying out for vacation or business at the end of the year?
01:48Yeah, well, in fact, even before that, because, of course, businesses bring in stock
01:55around October, November, orders go out.
02:01And the other, probably like Diwali, happens around that kind of time frame.
02:06So you also have a big festival, I suppose, at that time together with Christmas following right after.
02:16Governor Hawaii spoke of one suggested remedy.
02:20Saying, okay, closer to Christmas, you have it higher.
02:24In January, lower.
02:26February, maybe, could be lower.
02:28Carnival, people come in with money rather than go out with money, I presume, right?
02:34You know, and as we go along, you know, different things, we adjust seasonally for that.
02:41We haven't gone very far with that.
02:44It's something that I've sort of put out for us to consider.
02:47The foreign exchange issue is expected to be addressed by the government in its upcoming budget.
02:53Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
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