Economist: The country is almost broke

[hover11]

They need to make a special tax just for them because they pay neither NIS nor PAYE , something like a migrant tax , they have to pay something, they simply cannot be recieving a salary then converting it to US to send for their families , how is that beneficial to the country

how many venes making more than the personal allowance?

[sMASH]

they got a 6 moth extension. they really supposed to not be here any more. with every ting, to dedicate resources to forumlate a plan, implement it, they would be gone before that.

[Redress10]

Here's some ideas to generate Forex:

1. Create an offshore Software development, Business Intelligence and Artificial intelligence centre.

2. Export carnival across the world. Become a centre for artists, costume, party organization etc. Music revenues will often be in Forex.

3. Eco tourism both here and Tobago.

4. Fulfil Manning's wish to become an offshore banking centre.

5. Create a local movie industry and provide proper support and funding.

6. We have high quality cocoa and pineapple etc export those in mass

7. Export our engineering talent to Guyana. Guyana's wealth can become ours.

1. This requires a highly skilled and educated population. What you are asking for is essentially a high number of stem graduates. Anyhow, this is was required since the 80s and 90s and that role has been dominated by the indians for decades now who are highly skilled but lowly paid. Can't compete against the indians in tech. They'll mash ya up bad bad bad.

We have 100s of very qualified experienced folks here in Trinidad with countless others abroad in places like Google, Facebook, as well as countless PhDs aboard in top universities. Bring them home, pay them at least 40k and have them lead these teams.

2. No one cares for carnival. No one. Repeat that to yourself a hundred times and fall asleep. Trinidad can't even compete with Rio carnival and no one cares for that as well.

Nope, Carnival was actually growing immensely in many countries in the Caribbean, and generating big monies for many islands. We need to promote ours better, make it more attractive to tourists. As well our promoters can go to these places and earn revenues in Forex. Look at Soaka in jamaica, that one fete probably made half a million USD or more. And we have countless others to target in Toronto, London and Miami, even Tokyo.

Now look at revenues earned by our local artists. Streaming services, Youtube, performances in other countries all earn forex.

All of these can earn us close to a billion USD a year and creates the employment of tens of thousands.

3. This is a good idea and possibly the most realistic in terms of tourism.

4. I have been saying this for years. I think some persons in TT are wary of the added scrutiny by US and Uk regulators.

5. Pointless tbh. If you said promote TT as a destination to film movies then maybe yeh. Don't see how a movie industry results in added earnings for the country.

6. We also don't have the land to sustain agriculture for export. Maybe we can lease some guyanese land strictlty for agriculture to export. Can't export cocoa in mass as africa has that locked. I think pineapples are mainly exported from Panama.

We do have it, we just need to utilize it well. Doing something is better than doing nothing.

7. Possible. Unless Heritage going and drill oil in Guyana and own land and rights then it's just remittance you are hoping to get.

I meant our local companies providing engineering services, not only remittances.

Reality is Trinidad needs to import less. We can start by decreasing food imports. Thereare certain things we simply don't need to import such as peanut butter because the product is indistinguishable. Should also look at things such as lettuce and cereals.

I agree, but where's the incentive to buy local? Local goods and services end up costing more in many cases than foreign. We need to examine why and try to subsidize or remove taxes where necessary to lower their cost of production.

1. All that tech stuff is ambitious but simply not feasible. Tech is an ecosystem involving not just knowledge but banking, government, universities, hedge funds etc. That's why the majority of major tech comes from places like California. They set up a whole ecosystem there and let us also remember the link they have with the military industrial complex. What India gets from the west is the crumbs but india has people who are more knowledgeable than those in the west. That indian dude.who you outsource your cheap website design to may probably come here and top UWI without any effort but he simply can't do better because of his location.

2. I am speaking outside of the caribbean mainly Europe and USA. Reality is carnival is a cultural export, to have a successful export you need to have a diaspora willing and able to accept it and promote it. Tt population is already small so chances are our diaspora is small as well. The reality is our culture is not as exciting and unique as some of you all will like to believe. People simply don't care. For years residents in Nottinghill have been trying to shut down the carnival because it is considered burdensome. The NY one always has some.sort of crime or shooting. Those countries are not accepting of activities that bring those sort of elements into their space. So I don't see this being an actual export. If you want to wage your economic future on party promoters then go right ahead.

Providing engineering services is good and well but what you want to provide is intellectual property. Processes and technologies that you can patent. That's what the west does and.that's why in TT there is shell, bp etc. They are able to exploit the knowledge and technological gap between them and us for a significant price. They are not here for charity. We won't be able to do that with Guyana beccause our knowledge isn't new or unique. Guyana would just seek another partner. Could literally be any oil producing nation on the planet. That is why I told you, you are probably thinking about remittances. People going there to work and send money back.

Has nothing to do with incentives. Countries don't import goods unless they absolutely have to. Most developed nations consume what they produce and when they can't they change their habits to suit local produce. We have this myth that you have to import. You can simply do without. Why do we need to import 10 brands of peanut butter for example. Gov't can quickly change consumer taste via increased duties and taxes. Most foreign goods in the UK tend to be 2-3 times higher than local manufactured goods if you can even find them on the shelves. Most of the foreign goods are there to suit meet the taste of the large international community that live there so those ppl accept that they will have to pay above market price to enjoy these products.

[hover11]

I don't think they leaving tbh I mean it would take probably a generation or two to fix what Maduro did to Venezuela their economy is oil based so that's a disadvantage as is

they got a 6 moth extension. they really supposed to not be here any more. with every ting, to dedicate resources to forumlate a plan, implement it, they would be gone before that.

[sMASH]

well, illegal ones gonna be deported. setting up a taxation system for illegal venes that gonna be deported is like making a law to protect people who ply their private cars for hire, while it is illegal to ply a private car for hire.

[Country_Bookie]

We are reaping the fruits from seeds planted long ago. We repeated the mistakes of the 70s when we squandered the oil and gas boom from 2000 - 2013. We never considered investing in industries to drive our economy after the oil and gas reserves dried up. Our finance minister for the last 6 years treats the annual budget as a book keeping exercise; that's why his only solution is more taxes to cover for declining revenues. Withdrawing funds from HSF and running down foreign reserves that took decades to build up was never a sustainable strategy.

Unless we invest in new industries to create employment and exports, things will get worse. First we need to figure out where we have a competitive advantage.

[Dohplaydat]

1. All that tech stuff is ambitious but simply not feasible. Tech is an ecosystem involving not just knowledge but banking, government, universities, hedge funds etc. That's why the majority of major tech comes from places like California. They set up a whole ecosystem there and let us also remember the link they have with the military industrial complex. What India gets from the west is the crumbs but india has people who are more knowledgeable than those in the west. That indian dude.who you outsource your cheap website design to may probably come here and top UWI without any effort but he simply can't do better because of his location.

That's an old assumption, read the article I've posted below.

2. I am speaking outside of the caribbean mainly Europe and USA. Reality is carnival is a cultural export, to have a successful export you need to have a diaspora willing and able to accept it and promote it. Tt population is already small so chances are our diaspora is small as well. The reality is our culture is not as exciting and unique as some of you all will like to believe. People simply don't care. For years residents in Nottinghill have been trying to shut down the carnival because it is considered burdensome. The NY one always has some.sort of crime or shooting. Those countries are not accepting of activities that bring those sort of elements into their space. So I don't see this being an actual export. If you want to wage your economic future on party promoters then go right ahead.

Why be so negative? We have everything already, it just needs to be pushed and encouraged more and naturally it will develop without much government interference.

Providing engineering services is good and well but what you want to provide is intellectual property. Processes and technologies that you can patent. That's what the west does and.that's why in TT there is shell, bp etc. They are able to exploit the knowledge and technological gap between them and us for a significant price. They are not here for charity. We won't be able to do that with Guyana beccause our knowledge isn't new or unique. Guyana would just seek another partner. Could literally be any oil producing nation on the planet. That is why I told you, you are probably thinking about remittances. People going there to work and send money back.

Has nothing to do with incentives. Countries don't import goods unless they absolutely have to. Most developed nations consume what they produce and when they can't they change their habits to suit local produce. We have this myth that you have to import. You can simply do without. Why do we need to import 10 brands of peanut butter for example. Gov't can quickly change consumer taste via increased duties and taxes. Most foreign goods in the UK tend to be 2-3 times higher than local manufactured goods if you can even find them on the shelves. Most of the foreign goods are there to suit meet the taste of the large international community that live there so those ppl accept that they will have to pay above market price to enjoy these products.

I disagree partially because you assume rational thinking. We as a people have gotten spoilt and dependent and have developed a taste for 'foreign' goods. So I am in agreement, but how does one get local producers to make such goods? If they could have, they would have already. The main reason I hear, is that the cost would be higher and the competition with low cost foreign goods is too much.

Also, you're wrong about the UK, they import tonnes of cheap produce from Turkey, Spain, Italy and Asia. Yes, foreign goods can't compete with their local diary and meat industry, but 2-3 times higher is not true for most goods.

https://newsday.co.tt/2020/09/03/trini- ... nnovators/

Trini US-based inventor: Why TT needs data and innovators
KIRAN MATHUR MOHAMMED THURSDAY 3 SEPTEMBER 2020

Patrick Hosein is homesick. When he speaks you can hear the wistfulness in his voice.

Born in Curepe, this San Diego-based inventor and innovator has notched up more than 40-plus patents and 100 publications. In his time at Bell Labs, Ericsson and Huawei, he has been at the cutting edge of telecommunications.

He made time for my call in between work in South Korea (rolling out the world’s first 5G network that will enable almost any object to be cheaply connected and usher in the internet of things) and his real passion: nurturing students at UWI, where he has recently introduced new data-science graduate programmes.

I dived in: how do we return to growth and generate jobs? Can innovation be our way out?

“Yes, our local industries are inefficient as it was easy to be profitable with energy. But you cannot innovate and produce something to generate foreign exchange overnight. We are not hungry for innovation.

“App development will not bring in foreign exchange. We need to compete on a higher level.

“Repeating an app that someone in another country has done locally isn’t doing anything much.

“I’m focused right now on how we can use data science to help existing companies make their operations more efficient. The real battle (that can bring in foreign exchange) should be to solve problems for third world countries using AI and data analytics. What I’ve found, though, is that industry cannot use data analytic techniques because they do not have the means to collect data. You need to help them develop the infrastructure to do it.

“So the first step is to do that…then we can introduce data analytics and AI.”

This makes sense. For a small business like a restaurant, this can be something as simple as analysing the customers who make most reservations – and focusing on them – rolling out new pastries, for example. But are people prepared to start thinking in this way?

“There is the other issue of education: we are not educating our students in the areas that we should.

“(In TT) we give them well defined problems and they can solve them, because they are given solutions.

“They go out into industry and they are at a complete loss because they don’t understand how to formulate and break down the problem. The questions asked are open-ended. They want complete guidance to the solution. Whereas I go in and say look: lay out how you would go about doing it (defining the problem and solutions) and write it up.

“Local companies tend not to trust our (the university’s) abilities. I don’t blame them, as in the past in my field, UWI had a poor track record of producing quality work for industry. I see that changing. The change is coming because they (businesses) can’t afford the foreign exchange.

“TSTT is using five of my students. CIBC has five students. Guardian Life, Beacon etc are now approaching us to help them with data science, which is a good step, but we have to step up to the plate and provide them with good expertise.

“But our industries do not compensate local technical people well. The good ones, we’re going to lose them, and it will then cost them five times more to use foreign expertise.

“There are people who are abroad and who would like to come back. Besides the issue of crime, there is the issue of not being treated well. I try to grab some of these returning scholars and have them continuing the type of work they were doing abroad otherwise they end up in a ministry doing something trivial.

“Look at people like Stefan Hosein. After his work at NASA, a ministry had him working on a website…frustrated. I pulled him out and paid him from my personal company – he’s now doing great work at Cambridge and Google.”

Can we actively recruit our diaspora?

“Islands like Barbados have a programme whereby they come here for research tourism. UWI could provide nice houses by the beach in return for some form of collaboration.

“I could stay out here in San Diego doing research on 5G. but I keep returning.

"Of course, nobody takes me seriously.

"I see so much potential in TT. It is frustrating to see that. I used to fight when I was on boards and councils – but not any more. I can’t do it all on my own. My students will take that up.”

Kiran Mathur Mohammed is a social entrepreneur, economist and businessman. He is a former banker, and a graduate of the University of Edinburgh

[Redress10]

Dohplaythat

The indians will always beat us on quality and quantity. This is their market that they locked down. Everything mentioned in that article can be outsourced to India for a fraction of what it would costs in TT. A great example of this is Sunai Pitchai, google's Ceo. His father, an electrical engineer by profession spent the equivalent of a year's salary just to be able to afford his son's plane ticket to the USA. Today the average plane ticket from US to India costs about 600usd. I am pretty sure that an electrical engineer in TT makes more than 600usd per year. That is how poor some of those people are. But they are extremely brilliant that is why they are able to outsource to western companies. We simply wouldn't be able to compete on price and quality in order to transform the economy. Our services will be too expensive.


Carnival promotes soca etc. Soca isn't a popular genre of music, it doesn't even have a grammy category. The honest reality is that outside of the caribbean, diaspora and ppl connected to the region people simply don't care for it. To many persons carnival looks chaotic and the actions of revellers don't promote conservative values that are the bedrock of plenty western nations. You can also rule out all of the islamic countries and quite possibly the ultra conservative latin countries. Carnival is simply not as popular as some of you all will like to believe.


Foreign goods are low costs due to the scale of manufacturing. A population of 1.3 million ppl is literally nothing to an american manufacturer who is catering to a population of 330 million people plus international markets. What we can do is lower unnecessary imports. Not every brand of cereal, chocolate etc needs to be imported. Stuff like lettuce should be removed entirely as well.

Spain, Italy etc as members of Eu means the trade isn't viewed as an import. It simply comes as though the product is being produced in the same land but 1000s of kilometers away. This also means that the EU border is wide so a good that comes in via land in spain can be driven all the way to the UK without having to go through anymore customs duties/tariffs. All of this play a role in why goods remain cheap. With the UK no longer being in the EU, once that good has to pass through the various european checkpoints and the duties etc are added you can expect those goods to become much higher. Asian goods would be cheaper due to the strength of the pound vs the asian currency. If some asian countries pay workers as little as 10usd per day u can expect cheaper goods.

Btw I was speaking more about american goods tbh. Probably the only other trading partner whose currency cud compete and give a better comparison of quality of life with regards to salary etc. For instance a box of lucky charms cereal cost $3.50 usd in walmart. That same box costs £7 or the equivalent of $9.59 in the UK.

[adnj]

They need to make a special tax just for them because they pay neither NIS nor PAYE , something like a migrant tax , they have to pay something, they simply cannot be recieving a salary then converting it to US to send for their families , how is that beneficial to the country

how many venes making more than the personal allowance?

I am interested in what documented and undocumented immigrants pay in VAT and duty per capita when compared to total taxes paid (duty, VAT, PAYE) of nationals.

I have not been able to find that information.

[zoom rader]

We are reaping the fruits from seeds planted long ago. We repeated the mistakes of the 70s when we squandered the oil and gas boom from 2000 - 2013. We never considered investing in industries to drive our economy after the oil and gas reserves dried up. Our finance minister for the last 6 years treats the annual budget as a book keeping exercise; that's why his only solution is more taxes to cover for declining revenues. Withdrawing funds from HSF and running down foreign reserves that took decades to build up was never a sustainable strategy.

Unless we invest in new industries to create employment and exports, things will get worse. First we need to figure out where we have a competitive advantage.

[Rovin]

ent even up to recently impsbutt was repeating "when we came into govt in 2015 d country only had $ to last 3 days" ..... what did they do to full it back besides teef from d HSF

[Redress10]

Our most immediate forex generator apart from energy exports is cruise ship stops. The average cruise ship holds between 3000 and 6000 people. Places like Bim have 6 and 8 cruise ships docking daily.

If one cruise ship of 3000 people dock daily and each person on that ship spends $100usd whilst here that is 300 thousand usd. For a thirty day period that amounts to 9 million usd. For the year that is 108 million usd which amounts to about 750 million ttd. Now Remember that's money being slent in your country. It could be from tours or even buying lunch in a restaurant.

Now obviously you're not going to get a cruise ship everyday and not everyone is going to spend money in your country but it just gives you an idea of the potential if the right things are put in place.

I honestly think trinis are too proud to benefit from tourism and our leaders certainly feel that it is beneath them.

[Dohplaydat]

Our most immediate forex generator apart from energy exports is cruise ship stops. The average cruise ship holds between 3000 and 6000 people. Places like Bim have 6 and 8 cruise ships docking daily.

If one cruise ship of 3000 people dock daily and each person on that ship spends $100usd whilst here that is 300 thousand usd. For a thirty day period that amounts to 9 million usd. For the year that is 108 million usd which amounts to about 750 million ttd. Now Remember that's money being slent in your country. It could be from tours or even buying lunch in a restaurant.

Now obviously you're not going to get a cruise ship everyday and not everyone is going to spend money in your country but it just gives you an idea of the potential if the right things are put in place.

I honestly think trinis are too proud to benefit from tourism and our leaders certainly feel that it is beneath them.

Why isn't there a marina in Tobago?

[Redress10]

Because Tobagonians get their money from Central Bank who gets the money from oil and gas. Tobagonians eh wanna wuk on no marina. They wanna wuk at the THA. Sign in 10 and leave at 12

Ent is 3.5% of the national budget each year?

[Dohplaydat]

They need to make a special tax just for them because they pay neither NIS nor PAYE , something like a migrant tax , they have to pay something, they simply cannot be recieving a salary then converting it to US to send for their families , how is that beneficial to the country

how many venes making more than the personal allowance?

I am interested in what documented and undocumented immigrants pay in VAT and duty per capita when compared to total taxes paid (duty, VAT, PAYE) of nationals.

I have not been able to find that information.

You won't be you can estimate it using some simple assumptions.

Assume the average Venezuelan migrant is spending $1500 TT a month on VAT payable goods and services and there are at least 60K migrants, possible more.

60,000 * 1,500 * 0.125 = so 11.125M TT per month. or 135M TT per year from them....this doesn't account for the VAT collected by who that spends that money afterwards.

Also, just adding this article here as some food for thought - https://trinidadexpress.com/news/local/ ... c73b2.html

[Redress10]

6 months of the year is hurricane season. As we tend to sit outside the hurricane belt all sort of pleasure craft and marine vessels could be stored here for a fee. Even tourist cud come here knowing that chances of getting stuck in a hurricane are slim.

Do we take advantage of this? Nope.

Do we even care? Nobody wants to do the work but everybody want to eat and drive the best. Where will the money come from?

[paid_influencer]

who deals with all the excrement from cruise ships. where does the crap go

[Dohplaydat]

Dohplaythat

The indians will always beat us on quality and quantity. This is their market that they locked down. Everything mentioned in that article can be outsourced to India for a fraction of what it would costs in TT. A great example of this is Sunai Pitchai, google's Ceo. His father, an electrical engineer by profession spent the equivalent of a year's salary just to be able to afford his son's plane ticket to the USA. Today the average plane ticket from US to India costs about 600usd. I am pretty sure that an electrical engineer in TT makes more than 600usd per year. That is how poor some of those people are. But they are extremely brilliant that is why they are able to outsource to western companies. We simply wouldn't be able to compete on price and quality in order to transform the economy. Our services will be too expensive.


Carnival promotes soca etc. Soca isn't a popular genre of music, it doesn't even have a grammy category. The honest reality is that outside of the caribbean, diaspora and ppl connected to the region people simply don't care for it. To many persons carnival looks chaotic and the actions of revellers don't promote conservative values that are the bedrock of plenty western nations. You can also rule out all of the islamic countries and quite possibly the ultra conservative latin countries. Carnival is simply not as popular as some of you all will like to believe.


Foreign goods are low costs due to the scale of manufacturing. A population of 1.3 million ppl is literally nothing to an american manufacturer who is catering to a population of 330 million people plus international markets. What we can do is lower unnecessary imports. Not every brand of cereal, chocolate etc needs to be imported. Stuff like lettuce should be removed entirely as well.

Spain, Italy etc as members of Eu means the trade isn't viewed as an import. It simply comes as though the product is being produced in the same land but 1000s of kilometers away. This also means that the EU border is wide so a good that comes in via land in spain can be driven all the way to the UK without having to go through anymore customs duties/tariffs. All of this play a role in why goods remain cheap. With the UK no longer being in the EU, once that good has to pass through the various european checkpoints and the duties etc are added you can expect those goods to become much higher. Asian goods would be cheaper due to the strength of the pound vs the asian currency. If some asian countries pay workers as little as 10usd per day u can expect cheaper goods.

Btw I was speaking more about american goods tbh. Probably the only other trading partner whose currency cud compete and give a better comparison of quality of life with regards to salary etc. For instance a box of lucky charms cereal cost $3.50 usd in walmart. That same box costs £7 or the equivalent of $9.59 in the UK.

Nah I still think you don't understand the tech offshore industry - it takes many forms.

Lots of smaller countries are competing in this space. Hell I know of trinis myself who are remote working for companies all over the world in tech.

We just need to encourage this path more by ensuring our education sector pushes these topics, we have better lectures and we recover those who left (reverse the brain drain).

India is a source of cheap tech services right now, but definitely NOT quality. Also, the Indian accent is annoying to many westerners, unlike Trini. India needs to improve a lot which THEY are, but tech is such a huge and wide industry that there's room for many players.

If Costa Rica can do it, so can we - https://www.launchwaymedia.com/blog/tec ... l%20region.

Costa Rica is home to almost five million people and an active workforce that puts a great deal of emphasis on education. With the lofty goal of becoming a completely bilingual nation in the next decade, Costa Rica is encouraging students to pursue careers in the technology sector – and the results so far are impressive.

Costa Rica’s technology exports are high and hundreds of technology companies have set up offices in the country. In fact, 29 of the Fortune 100 companies have operations in Costa Rica, including Amazon, Intel, Dole, P&G, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, and many more.

Here’s a look at how Costa Rica established itself as a technology leader in the Americas and how it’s working to become the ‘Silicon Valley of Latin America.’

Carnival and soca aren't popular amongst non-diaspora persons, I agree, but it can be. Do you have any idea how many westerns trinis living abroad have converted their friends into soca lovers?

The genre and party scene of carnival was growing, you can see it in the Caribbean itself, 5 years ago, Jamaica, Grenada, Lucian mas was small. Now it's as big as our carnival (relative to their size).

I'm saying Carnival HAS potential, we just need to push it more and encourage it to grow naturally.

[Dohplaydat]

6 months of the year is hurricane season. As we tend to sit outside the hurricane belt all sort of pleasure craft and marine vessels could be stored here for a fee. Even tourist cud come here knowing that chances of getting stuck in a hurricane are slim.

Do we take advantage of this? Nope.

Do we even care? Nobody wants to do the work but everybody want to eat and drive the best. Where will the money come from?

Tobago is also a safe haven for hurricanes, them missing out on so much tourism dollars by not having one.

[adnj]

6 months of the year is hurricane season. As we tend to sit outside the hurricane belt all sort of pleasure craft and marine vessels could be stored here for a fee. Even tourist cud come here knowing that chances of getting stuck in a hurricane are slim.

Do we take advantage of this? Nope.

Do we even care? Nobody wants to do the work but everybody want to eat and drive the best. Where will the money come from?

Tobago is also a safe haven for hurricanes, them missing out on so much tourism dollars by not having one.

No comparison to Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire.

[Dohplaydat]

6 months of the year is hurricane season. As we tend to sit outside the hurricane belt all sort of pleasure craft and marine vessels could be stored here for a fee. Even tourist cud come here knowing that chances of getting stuck in a hurricane are slim.

Do we take advantage of this? Nope.

Do we even care? Nobody wants to do the work but everybody want to eat and drive the best. Where will the money come from?

Tobago is also a safe haven for hurricanes, them missing out on so much tourism dollars by not having one.

No comparison to Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire.

Still worth doing, look how many yachts are docked here in Chaguaramas.

ABC islands aren't that much safer than us:

[eliteauto]

Our most immediate forex generator apart from energy exports is cruise ship stops. The average cruise ship holds between 3000 and 6000 people. Places like Bim have 6 and 8 cruise ships docking daily.

If one cruise ship of 3000 people dock daily and each person on that ship spends $100usd whilst here that is 300 thousand usd. For a thirty day period that amounts to 9 million usd. For the year that is 108 million usd which amounts to about 750 million ttd. Now Remember that's money being slent in your country. It could be from tours or even buying lunch in a restaurant.

Now obviously you're not going to get a cruise ship everyday and not everyone is going to spend money in your country but it just gives you an idea of the potential if the right things are put in place.

I honestly think trinis are too proud to benefit from tourism and our leaders certainly feel that it is beneath them.

Ambitious figures but very wrong, the largest ships to dock here avg over 3000 persons, of that amt roughly 75% disembark, of that 40% do pedestrian sightseeing and photo ops spending nothing or close to nothing. The remainder is divided into those who pre-book tours which is about half and the rest negotiate with transport providers for trips, their spend averages $30-50 USD inclusive of trinket and food purchases. A cruise ship caters to all their passengers' needs and isn't cheap leaving many with little disposable income for shore leave, add to that we being the southernmost island are usually last port of call when many have exhausted their cash. The next cruise ship season ( if it happens) has us seeing an increase in stops owing to Royal Caribbean basing themselves in B'dos, their new offerings add both Trinidad and Tobago as ports of call. Btw IIRC there is a plan for a marina in Tobago.

[Dohplaydat]

Our most immediate forex generator apart from energy exports is cruise ship stops. The average cruise ship holds between 3000 and 6000 people. Places like Bim have 6 and 8 cruise ships docking daily.

If one cruise ship of 3000 people dock daily and each person on that ship spends $100usd whilst here that is 300 thousand usd. For a thirty day period that amounts to 9 million usd. For the year that is 108 million usd which amounts to about 750 million ttd. Now Remember that's money being slent in your country. It could be from tours or even buying lunch in a restaurant.

Now obviously you're not going to get a cruise ship everyday and not everyone is going to spend money in your country but it just gives you an idea of the potential if the right things are put in place.

I honestly think trinis are too proud to benefit from tourism and our leaders certainly feel that it is beneath them.

Ambitious figures but very wrong, the largest ships to dock here avg over 3000 persons, of that amt roughly 75% disembark, of that 40% do pedestrian sightseeing and photo ops spending nothing or close to nothing. The remainder is divided into those who pre-book tours which is about half and the rest negotiate with transport providers for trips, their spend averages $30-50 USD inclusive of trinket and food purchases. A cruise ship caters to all their passengers' needs and isn't cheap leaving many with little disposable income for shore leave, add to that we being the southernmost island are usually last port of call when many have exhausted their cash. The next cruise ship season ( if it happens) has us seeing an increase in stops owing to Royal Caribbean basing themselves in B'dos, their new offerings add both Trinidad and Tobago as ports of call. Btw IIRC there is a plan for a marina in Tobago.

Compare this to carnival where u have 40,000 people spending at least $2000USD here. That's $80M USD injected into the economy.

[eliteauto]

6 months of the year is hurricane season. As we tend to sit outside the hurricane belt all sort of pleasure craft and marine vessels could be stored here for a fee. Even tourist cud come here knowing that chances of getting stuck in a hurricane are slim.

Do we take advantage of this? Nope.

Do we even care? Nobody wants to do the work but everybody want to eat and drive the best. Where will the money come from?

Who do you think own many of the pleasure craft in Chaguaramas during the hurricane season? Many sail from Florida to Trinidad and fly back home, it's been the basis of the marina and boat repair facilities in Chag for decades. What has happened is other islands have built better facilities in the last 10 years which have become more attractive ( quite a few are owned /built/managed by Trinis). We had a period when our tax policy made it less feasible, I think that was fixed ( subject to correction). Our issue has and continues to be that diversification is a catchphrase we use while praying to the oil gods, we squandered opportunities in the past and we have no vision for the future. Our private sector should be leading in innovation but having gotten fat off state contracts for decades now all they can offer is woes and crying. In T&T Tenderpreneurship is a legitimate business model

[Dohplaydat]

6 months of the year is hurricane season. As we tend to sit outside the hurricane belt all sort of pleasure craft and marine vessels could be stored here for a fee. Even tourist cud come here knowing that chances of getting stuck in a hurricane are slim.

Do we take advantage of this? Nope.

Do we even care? Nobody wants to do the work but everybody want to eat and drive the best. Where will the money come from?

Who do you think own many of the pleasure craft in Chaguaramas during the hurricane season? Many sail from Florida to Trinidad and fly back home, it's been the basis of the marina and boat repair facilities in Chag for decades. What has happened is other islands have built better facilities in the last 10 years which have become more attractive ( quite a few are owned /built/managed by Trinis). We had a period when our tax policy made it less feasible, I think that was fixed ( subject to correction). Our issue has and continues to be that diversification is a catchphrase we use while praying to the oil gods, we squandered opportunities in the past and we have no vision for the future. Our private sector should be leading in innovation but having gotten fat off state contracts for decades now all they can offer is woes and crying. In T&T Tenderpreneurship is a legitimate business model

This.

We have encouraged laziness all around and now we want the same set of politicians to fix it.

[sMASH]

ent when imburt take up position he gave some subsidies to the yacht industry?

but the spend of the foreigners for carnival, that 2k per person, what is the bulk of that spend? is that on the costume? hotel?

[eliteauto]

Our most immediate forex generator apart from energy exports is cruise ship stops. The average cruise ship holds between 3000 and 6000 people. Places like Bim have 6 and 8 cruise ships docking daily.

If one cruise ship of 3000 people dock daily and each person on that ship spends $100usd whilst here that is 300 thousand usd. For a thirty day period that amounts to 9 million usd. For the year that is 108 million usd which amounts to about 750 million ttd. Now Remember that's money being slent in your country. It could be from tours or even buying lunch in a restaurant.

Now obviously you're not going to get a cruise ship everyday and not everyone is going to spend money in your country but it just gives you an idea of the potential if the right things are put in place.

I honestly think trinis are too proud to benefit from tourism and our leaders certainly feel that it is beneath them.

Ambitious figures but very wrong, the largest ships to dock here avg over 3000 persons, of that amt roughly 75% disembark, of that 40% do pedestrian sightseeing and photo ops spending nothing or close to nothing. The remainder is divided into those who pre-book tours which is about half and the rest negotiate with transport providers for trips, their spend averages $30-50 USD inclusive of trinket and food purchases. A cruise ship caters to all their passengers' needs and isn't cheap leaving many with little disposable income for shore leave, add to that we being the southernmost island are usually last port of call when many have exhausted their cash. The next cruise ship season ( if it happens) has us seeing an increase in stops owing to Royal Caribbean basing themselves in B'dos, their new offerings add both Trinidad and Tobago as ports of call. Btw IIRC there is a plan for a marina in Tobago.

Compare this to carnival where u have 40,000 people spending at least $2000USD here. That's $80M USD injected into the economy.

People here will bash Carnival till the cows come home but the fact is Carnival is a major non-energy forex earner for T&T particularly for SMEs and sole traders.

[Redress10]

Dohplaythat

I understand the tech industry I just don't see it as an immediate solution to our problems. I am thinking about immediate solutions that can be implemented and see results within a year or two. Remember we are in crisis now. Had we put things in place about 2 decades ago we cud have been reaping the benefits of it all now. India wins based on the amount of people they can employ at any given time. Also add to the fact that many tech companies now have Indian executives or Ceos and are further pushing for India to be the number one outsourcing destination for Western Nations.


I don't mind carnival but I just don't see how you extract economic rent from it. There is nothing tangible about the product of carnival. Especially if it is done overseas. I rathee invest in a travelling circus that every night has an admittance fee and a set number of tickets. How do I accurately quantify what is earned when a carnival is held in another land? At the end of the day Jamaica, Vincy, Grenada carnival etc is their* carnival. It becomes even murkier when trinis leave from here and attend those carnivals resulting in further forex leakages. The problem with trinis is they don't understand that carnival is a festival for them to own and profit from. Carnival is work. They always need to have fun.

What you are asking for is investment by government into something that you can't list on the stock exchange anywhere in the world. Unless you are advocating for a cultural sort of company where image rights, artists rights, creator rights etc would be collated under some sort of ownership structure that the state can profit from? Sounds like you think promoters would go there make money and come back here and spend? If that is the case then they don't need much government assistance tbh. It is also not really diversification in my eyes as anyone is free to do that.

[sMASH]

who collects the US that foreigners spend for carnival? if the bulk of that cash goes to the bands, nobody else seeing that US, they getting paid in tt, unless machel say he taking benjamins.

and if it keeping in small circles, it not really benefiting any body.

[Redress10]

ent when imburt take up position he gave some subsidies to the yacht industry?

but the spend of the foreigners for carnival, that 2k per person, what is the bulk of that spend? is that on the costume? hotel?

The question is if that money being spent is being spent by someone who is attracted to TT because of genuine interests in TT and not someone who is related to the country somehow via friend or family. If they are the former then our tourism advertising efforts are working and if they are the latter then we wasting money and spinning top in mud.

I want ppl coming to TT carnival because they stumble upon an ad abt TT whilst in a train in eastern europe and not because they parents trini or caribbean. We already have these ppl on lock.

People don't go to Paris because their family from there. They go because the french has created a reputation that their city is worth visiting and exploring.