Government, Bankers Association agree to deepen economic collaboration

The Gov­ern­ment has met with the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go in a high-lev­el en­gage­ment aimed at strength­en­ing di­a­logue on eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, fi­nan­cial sec­tor sta­bil­i­ty and pol­i­cy co­or­di­na­tion with the bank­ing in­dus­try.

The meet­ing, con­vened by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, brought to­geth­er se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and lead­ers of the bank­ing sec­tor to dis­cuss cur­rent mar­ket con­di­tions and the broad­er eco­nom­ic out­look.

Al­so in at­ten­dance were Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance and Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Sen­a­tor Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh, Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai, and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Suzette Tay­lor-Lee Chee, along­side tech­ni­cal of­fi­cers and se­nior bank­ing ex­ec­u­tives.

Ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cials, dis­cus­sions al­so cov­ered pro­posed leg­isla­tive re­forms af­fect­ing the fi­nan­cial and bank­ing sec­tor, with em­pha­sis placed on im­prov­ing reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works, en­hanc­ing re­silience, and sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

Min­is­ter Tan­coo de­scribed the en­gage­ment as the be­gin­ning of a more prac­ti­cal and col­lab­o­ra­tive work­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween Gov­ern­ment, the Cen­tral Bank, and the bank­ing sec­tor. He said the aim is to avoid op­er­at­ing in si­los and in­stead build a co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach in the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

He em­pha­sised that clos­er co­op­er­a­tion would help strength­en pub­lic con­fi­dence, im­prove fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, and bet­ter sup­port busi­ness­es and house­holds across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The meet­ing was de­scribed as con­struc­tive, with par­tic­i­pants ac­knowl­edg­ing the im­por­tance of sus­tained di­a­logue and con­sis­tent en­gage­ment be­tween pol­i­cy­mak­ers and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions.

Of­fi­cials fur­ther not­ed that the dis­cus­sions form part of a wider ef­fort by the Gov­ern­ment to en­gage key stake­hold­ers across the econ­o­my in or­der to en­sure re­spon­si­ble eco­nom­ic man­age­ment and stronger in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­works.

Min­is­ter Tan­coo added that the ul­ti­mate goal is to im­ple­ment poli­cies that de­liv­er tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits for cit­i­zens, sup­port lo­cal en­ter­prise, and ad­vance na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment ob­jec­tives over the long term.

The Gov­ern­ment said fur­ther en­gage­ments with fi­nan­cial sec­tor stake­hold­ers will con­tin­ue in the com­ing months as part of its on­go­ing ef­forts to strength­en eco­nom­ic re­silience and sup­port sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment across Trinidad and To­ba­go. It will al­so pri­ori­tise trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and in­clu­sive growth go­ing for­ward na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.