TT Chamber calls for phased approach to gas pricing

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has called for a phased ap­proach to changes in nat­ur­al gas pric­ing fol­low­ing an in­crease an­nounced by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In a me­dia re­lease, the TT Cham­ber said it is col­lect­ing in­for­ma­tion from mem­bers on cost in­creas­es linked to the 77 per cent rise in gas rates. The or­gan­i­sa­tion said the da­ta will ad­dress changes in op­er­at­ing costs and ef­fects on pric­ing, em­ploy­ment and ex­ports.

The TT Cham­ber said man­u­fac­tur­ers have op­er­at­ed un­der gas pric­ing arrange­ments set by the State as part of ef­forts to sup­port di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion. It not­ed that elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter sub­si­dies al­so form part of the frame­work un­der which busi­ness­es op­er­ate. The cham­ber said these mea­sures are linked to growth plans that re­ly on part­ner­ship be­tween the State and busi­ness.

The re­lease said the coun­try faces ad­just­ment with­in a sub­sidised sys­tem and that re­form is re­quired. The TT Cham­ber said changes to en­er­gy and util­i­ty pric­ing should take place through di­a­logue, with at­ten­tion to com­pet­i­tive­ness, jobs and ex­ports. It said re­turns from re­form should ben­e­fit cit­i­zens.

The TT Cham­ber said man­u­fac­tur­ers ac­count for about 1.5 per cent of gas us­age while em­ploy­ing thou­sands of work­ers across more than 100 firms. It said high­er gas prices may af­fect con­sumer prices and ex­ports. The cham­ber said it ex­pects steps to im­prove out­put and man­age­ment with­in gov­ern­ment bod­ies so added rev­enue does not sup­port waste.

The re­lease out­lined pol­i­cy op­tions in­clud­ing tiered gas pric­ing by us­age and sec­tor, me­ter­ing for elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter, and staged sub­sidy changes linked to mar­ket trends. It said these steps would as­sist plan­ning and in­vest­ment.

The TT Cham­ber said it re­mains en­gaged with mem­bers, the Gov­ern­ment and oth­er par­ties to reach out­comes that re­duce strain on firms and house­holds. It said it will con­tin­ue talks aimed at so­lu­tions that pro­tect mem­bers, many of whom are SMEs, and the wider com­mu­ni­ty.