00:00International hotelier Hilton is reportedly preparing to withdraw its brand from the state-owned Hilton Trinidad and Conference Center after
00:09required capital upgrades estimated at over U.S. $600,000 were not carried out to maintain international operating standards.
00:18Economist and a former minister in the Ministry of Finance, Mariano Brown, tells the Morning Edition the situation suggests a
00:27clear fallout between government and the hotel brand.
00:30Clearly what is happening here is some sort of dispute either on one side because the owner isn't paying the
00:41capital maintenance he's supposed to pay or alternatively the brand is making enough money.
00:45So what this is a contract dispute of some kind and as I understand it, the last agreement, the last
00:52major agreement lasted from 2003 to 2023 and since then it's been a rolling arrangement on a year-to-year
01:00basis which sounds as though one of the two partners is not happy.
01:04He adds that limited long-stay visitor traffic continues to affect hotel earnings and argues that the government needs a
01:13new approach to managing these assets.
01:16You need to take a holistic positioning with regard to where you stand in the tourism market. Is it a
01:21business that you should be in? Is it something that should be out? Should you convert it, for example, into
01:26an income stream by way of selling it off as an REIT, a real estate investment trust, and give the
01:32opportunity for, if you want local capital, to basically have a share or a stake in the business.
01:40So those are the types of issues that the government has to address.
01:43On another issue, Brown also addresses government's stance on cutting CARICOM funding and his decision not to support the reappointment
01:53of Secretary General Dr. Carla Barnett, saying the move reflects a broader shift in foreign policy direction.
02:01What we are seeing here is foreign policy, political philosophy, and trade literally run aground because the three things are
02:10running on three different themes and the dominant presumption and the dominant orientation of the current government, in particular this
02:17prime minister, is towards an association with the U.S. and the U.S. right-wing.
02:21That has been precluded or demonstrated by statements making about anti-democratic in the case of Venezuela and certainly the
02:29same thing with dictatorship in the case of Cuba.
02:33He cautions that closer alignment with the United States policy may not always serve Trinidad and Tobago's long-term interests,
02:41warning that even allies can face difficult consequences if diplomacy is not carefully balanced.
02:48Nicole M. Romany, TV6 News.
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