PM: IMF funds to be used to bolster businesses

The Prime Minister has said the recent distribution of US$644 million from the IMF as part of its programme to help countries cope with the foreign-exchange demands of covid19 will be used to strengthen Trinidad and Tobago's position going forward and encourage export marketing.

“We will use it to ensure we can fund the recovery that has to be done in a variety of ways, and it will prevent us from borrowing as much as we would have had to borrow from other sources if we were without this kind of support. It’s going to be used to bolster the country’s recovery position in a variety of ways, and we will be as open as possible with that.”

Speaking on Brighter Morning with Bhoe on MCTV on Friday, Dr Rowley said the funds will be used to support businesses.

“What we wanted to do is to support those engaged in export marketing, whatever that is, to help us to get into the marketplace and to earn from that marketplace.

"A number of businesses would have used up their resources required to sustain them and to allow them to be strong and productive. We have to come up with models of expenditure, very carefully administered, that allow this funding to be had without it being a largesse which does not solve the problem that we have.”

He said the Cabinet would meet in retreat in Tobago next week and this was one of the issues that would be addressed. Another is that of subsidies.

“Much of government’s revenue is spent on subsidies. Once you mention that, people begin to say 'hardships' and, 'We need to be spared these hardships.'

"But if we don’t address these things, we end up requiring more and more of that support, which is unproductive. We spent about $30 billion subsidising fuel in recent years. If we had not done that and used most of that money in savings or other productive things, would we have been better off?”

Rowley said while there is a need to restructure and diversify the economy post-pandemic, people needed to appreciate that a lot of the old economy needed to be preserved as the basis of building the new economy.

“Bear in mind that when the roadmap to recovery committee met, we were in 2020 – and 2021 has been even more challenging.

"We are not yet at the end of the pandemic, and it is wearing us down. We are engaged in surviving before we can step out into a new economy.”