Valley: Non-energy investors coming

TRADE AND INDUSTRY Minister Ken Valley disclosed that Trinidad and Tobago is becoming increasingly attractive to non-energy investors and he has been speaking with several of them within recent weeks about investment opportunities in TT. Speaking during debate on the Venture Capital (Amendment) Bill 2004 in the House of Represen-tatives yesterday, Valley said there were many positive developments in TT on the economic front and not all of them were occurring in the energy sector.

The Minister indicated that following two recent major business conferences held in TT, he held discussions with several non-energy businessmen who said they see this country “as a platform” for investment into the Americas. Valley said this was in keeping with Government’s vision to transform TT into a regional financial centre and the Bill would provide an environment to “make equity capital available” to non-energy businesses interested in establishing operations in TT. He added that because of Government’s financial strategies, “the cost of doing business in TT is going down” and investors (energy and non-energy) were knocking at the door.

Valley described the Bill as “a critical piece of the jigsaw” in Government’s plans to establish an industrial park at Wallerfield, and said Government will soon be bringing a White Paper of Financial Sector Reform to Parliament. The Bill was subsequently passed without amendments. The Lower House also passed a motion by Science, Technology and Tertiary Education Minister Colm Imbert to approve Senate amendments to the Accreditation Council of TT Bill 2004.