Chambers: Break business barriers in 2026

WITH three prime ministers, three states of emergencies and a list of global shocks and changes, some of which have reached close to TT’s borders, 2025 was a whirlwind year for many. For TT’s business sector, that could not be truer.

From changes to tariff regimes globally to local announcements of new taxes, surcharges and fees, TT’s business sector has navigated a list of twists and turns. However, many of the challenges that businesses have always faced – access to foreign exchange, slow and laborious processes for licensing for businesses and poor efficiency in public services – continue to persist.

President of the Confederation of Regional Business Chambers Vivek Charran said that in 2026, for businesses to thrive and survive, government needs to break the barriers that slow development of businesses and encourage diversification of the economy.

“What economists do is speak from a broad, clinical perspective but when we translate that to the ground it is very difficult,” Charran said in a phone conversation with Business Day.

“The large manufacturing companies continue to be the same. What you really want is a broader and more diverse manufacturing sector that goes beyond food and beverage.

“We have to ask ourselves why it is not much wider. We have to look at what the barriers, bottlenecks and issues are along the way that would allow for start-ups to begin diversifying to other things quickly. That would also dictate what happens to other SMEs and other sectors in 2026.”

Debt & taxes

For the last quarter of 2025, the business sector was knocked about by several different fees, surcharges and taxes, some of which will take effect from today – New Year's Day – and others that have taken immediate effect from the reading of the 2025/2026 national budget.

As of midnight on January 1, government will put a 0.25 per cent asset levy on commercial banks and insurance companies, expected to contribute $575 million to state coffers.

Landlords will be required to register with the Board of Inland Revenue from January 1 as well, as part of a 2.5 per cent surcharge on the gross annual rental income of $20,000 or less and a 3.5 per cent surcharge on the gross annual rental income exceeding $20,000.

The registration alone is expected to yield a minimum of $70 million.

Electricity is also getting charged – a surcharge of $0.05 per kilowatt/hour (kWh) for commercial and industrial consumers will be implemented at the beginning of the year – a move that is estimated to contribute an additional $269 million in revenue.

With effect from the reading of the budget on October 13, government imposed an increase in fees, charges and excise duties for rum and spirits and cigarettes.

Businesses were not the only ones hit with fiscal measures.

On Christmas Day, government announced a doubling of several fines for errant road users, bringing penalties for common traffic violations such as driving without a seatbelt or driving with a broken tail light from $1,000 to $2,000.

While many have not reacted well to the new suite of fiscal measures, Charran deemed the taxes and fines a necessary evil because of the fiscal position the government found itself in when coming into office.

“People’s knee-jerk reaction to the increase in taxes across the board has not been positive. It never is when it comes to taxes being imposed on anyone. People are concerned that prices will rise or their costs will rise.

"However, when we look at the broader perspective when this government came into power they made certain promises, particularly that it would axe the Property Tax among other things.

“Nonetheless, we also learned that government’s cash flow, particularly when it comes to governing ministries, is in dire straits. To take the words from the prime minister herself, they were operating month-to-month in terms of cash flow.

“When we look at things like that we have to balance the needs of the government to earn revenue from taxation with the general dislike for taxes of any sort,” Charran said.

The government, since it was sworn-in in May, has highlighted fiscal challenges. Days after she was officially sworn in as Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar announced the government inherited what a "$4.42 billion hole” which needed to be filled, simply to keep the country running.

Later in the year, Minister of Finance Davendranath Tancoo announced government’s budget with an expected expenditure of $59 billion, would operate on an expenditure of $3.8 billion. However as former minister of finance and opposition MP for Diego Martin North Colm Imbert warned, at an opposition media briefing on December 30, the deficit could be much higher.

“The estimates of revenue for fiscal 2026 are completely wrong,” Imbert said.

“We told the government this when the budget was read in October. If you read it, you would see the minister of finance based his estimates of revenue on an oil price of $73.25.

“(On the day) the WTI is $58.30. Brent crude oil, $61.71. We don’t get those prices because most of our oil is from land sources and is heavier and fetches prices below the prices I just called.

“One of the foremost forecasting agencies in the world, the US Energy Information Administration forecasted…there may be a loss of $4 billion in terms of revenue.”

He added the unbudgeted items that were now being rolled out such as the ten per cent increase for PSA public servants and the advance on back pay could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

“I would say, if I had to do a professional estimate of that, you are talking about $500 million and a billion dollars would be required to be spent in 2026. I estimate the budget deficit would be somewhere between $7 billion and $10 billion, not the $3.8 billion that the minister talked about.”

Need for return on investments

Charran noted that many of the taxes seemed specific to sectors that were seeing growth in the past five years such as the property development sector and the food and beverage sector.

“I feel like that is the driving force behind the new tax structure,” Charran said. “I believe that the government is trying to do it in a way where it is the people who are earning money are directly paying these taxes and bearing the greater burden.

“With many citizens, they believe they are supposed to get everything for free, but the reality with business is that nothing is for free. Not even your birth certificate.”

However, he said, most businesses are willing to accept higher taxes and fees if businesses see a return on investment in the form of better government services and less red tape in establishing businesses.

“The problem is when you speak to people about becoming a farmer and diversifying, the first thing you have to do is get a farmers licence, but when you hear about how convoluted the process is and the fact that the process takes years as some people are saying, then you realise that simply getting the piece of paper that says ‘I am a registered farmer’ before you can do anything else, is the most difficult and frustrating aspect of the whole exercise. If we really want an economy that we can diversify, we need to look at the bottlenecks.

“While these new taxes has people’s attention now, a lot of the fundamental issues continue to be present and they need to be tackled.

“It goes beyond simply saying ‘the ease of doing business,’ what we are looking at is from a very specific point of view. Where are the points of disconnect with regard to the many institutions that are supposed to assist in businesses moving forward quickly?”

He said the public sector has already succeeded in increasing salaries and back pay. As such, what businesses expect for the new year is more efficient service from the public sector.

“Labour cannot have won their long-standing battle for better salaries and back pay and all that without there being some tangible benefit that comes out of it that is not only to labour. It has to be that benefit transfers on to the provision of services to the citizens of the country, including business. We hope to see that in the new year with regard to many of the public services.”

Optimism amidst strains

Chambers said its businesses are expressing cautious optimism for 2026.

The TT Chamber of Industry and Commerce in its business outlook published in November said the private sector is demonstrating guarded optimism over the medium term, while navigating short-term strain.

“Over half of executives reported worsened financial performance in the last six months yet remain confident about financial and investment prospects for both the next six and 12-month horizons,” the chamber said.

“Employment expectations are steady in the short term and turn positive over the year ahead, signalling cautious expansion intentions. Confidence in the local economy remains negative across most sectors, underscoring persistent structural challenges, while views on the global economy shift from short-term pessimism to medium-term optimism.”

The chamber noted an uncertainty among businesses about the government’s likely areas of positive impact on business.

“Overall, the data suggest that despite current pressures, firms are positioning for recovery and investment-led growth, albeit within an environment of domestic economic uncertainty.”

In its outlook in October, First Citizens also noted that TT was facing several challenges which needed to be addressed to achieve sustainable economic growth and development in the long-term.

“The structural decline in the size of the economy can negatively impact economic activity which may erode tax revenues and lead to possible higher unemployment and lower disposable incomes,” First Citizens said.

It suggested that building on the momentum of the manufacturing sector could help support the productive capacity of the country.

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