00:00chairman of the confederation of regional business chambers vivek charan says small and medium-sized
00:06enterprises are still grappling with significant financial pressures and he hopes more can be done
00:13to ease the burden on the sector he tells the morning edition many businesses remain weighed
00:19down by debt with revenues yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels he believes commercial
00:26banks are failing to provide the support needed and that smes are being unfairly treated the system
00:33is biased towards the fact that the more collateral given is the the the more your your um you know
00:41the
00:41more um you know more credit that's available to you but the issue with that is you know as you
00:48step
00:49up and you ask for more than the the level of collateral necessary to secure it vice chairman
00:55of the confederation ricardo mohammed says criminal activity in the sangri grande community is further
01:01undermining the ability of businesses there to earn and sustain themselves he says access to financial
01:08assistance is therefore critical to helping these enterprises remain viable but the banks make it
01:15difficult when the ministry of finance really should review um our sme development financing facilities
01:23so it helped us somewhat de-risk the lending process and then protect us the smes from from
01:31volunteer capitalism because sometimes some of the offers made by the banks it makes you feel like
01:37if you have to sign off your soul um to save yourself confederation chairman charan
01:43further laments that the greatest obstacle to sme survival is not government policy but access to
01:50financing from commercial banks he argues that manufacturing offers an important avenue for
01:57economic growth but small businesses cannot contribute meaningfully to the sector without capital with
02:04traditional lending proving difficult to access he is calling for alternative avenues of financing
02:10and that is why crbc confederation is working together with the private sector organization of trinidad and
02:18tobago and we're really trying to find a way um a path to alternative financing that is available that we
02:27can use to do these things and and we've had meetings at the ministry of of trade and it is
02:33one of the top priorities there
02:35um as the minister has said as well to defining alternative forms of financing
02:42nicole m romany tv6 news
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