WTK how to get currency from our banks

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I see ppl are blaming the companies yet we forget the aim of any business is to make a profit not to feed us that is secondary, why is no one blaming the government for their ability to regulate US dollars in the system or lack thereof ?

Red Government made the TT dollar too too paper

Four ship­ping com­pa­nies not ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars from next month

TTD like “mo­nop­oly mon­ey” says Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion head

Fear of hike in prices due to changes

From next month four ship­ping com­pa­nies in this coun­try will no longer be ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars from cus­tomers wish­ing to im­port items here, in­stead, they will on­ly be ac­cept­ing pay­ment of freight charges in Unit­ed States dol­lars.



This has led to con­cern from some busi­ness that it could mean high­er prices for con­sumers and if not more prob­lems for them to im­port the items they sell.

The four ship­ping agents are said to King Ocean Ser­vices, Trop­i­cal Ex­press Couri­ers, Crow­ley Trinidad Lim­it­ed and Seaboard Ma­rine (Trinidad) Ltd.

“Seaboard Ma­rine wish­es to ad­vise our val­ued cus­tomers that ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 17, 2021, we have adopt­ed a pol­i­cy re­quir­ing all freight charges paid in Trinidad to be done in US dol­lars,” a re­lease from Seaboard Ma­rine stat­ed.

“The con­tin­ued dif­fi­cul­ty of con­vert­ing Trinidad & To­ba­go dol­lars in­to U.S. dol­lars has made adop­tion of this pol­i­cy nec­es­sary and is ap­plic­a­ble on all charges list­ed on Car­ri­er’s bills of lad­ing. As al­ways, we thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port,” it stat­ed.

Pres­i­dent of the Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) Gar­ry Dal­la Cos­ta said while the en­tire fra­ter­ni­ty has not tak­en a sim­i­lar de­ci­sion he un­der­stands the “log­ic” be­hind the move tak­en by the four ship­ping agents.

SATT has over two dozen ship­ping agents as mem­bers.

“These ship­ping com­pa­nies have been col­lect­ing freight in T&T dol­lars, they have been ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars and there is one par­tic­u­lar com­pa­ny who has just about $50 mil­lion in TT sit­ting in the bank in Trinidad and there is no means of hav­ing it con­vert­ed. So, by and large, they don’t have any re­al ac­cess to the mon­ey,” Dal­la Cos­ta said.

“Then there’s a sec­ond prob­lem us­ing the mon­ey. The oil com­pa­nies in Trinidad if you’re buy­ing fu­el off tankers they are not ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars, they have to pay in US dol­lars so this is a sit­u­a­tion where the TT dol­lar ba­si­cal­ly to them is just mo­nop­oly mon­ey, you can­not use it,” he said.

Dal­la Cos­ta said un­less that sit­u­a­tion is changed and there is some means of hav­ing the TT dol­lars con­vert­ed “then re­al­ly the ship­ping lines do not have a choice at this time.”

“I plan on hav­ing a meet­ing with the as­so­ci­a­tion’s mem­bers on it and we will be ap­proach­ing the min­is­ter of fi­nance in the ear­ly new year to dis­cuss it,” Dal­la Cos­ta said.”

“You can­not op­er­ate an op­er­a­tion like this in an ad hoc man­ner you have to have prop­er­ly de­fined reg­u­la­tions in how we do busi­ness so I can see go­ing for­ward un­less this is done we are go­ing to have a prob­lem with freight pay­ments in Trinidad,” Dal­la Cos­ta warned.

Pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Ra­jiv Diptee said the as­so­ci­a­tion as tak­en by sur­prise by the an­nounce­ment and said it will have “mas­sive ram­i­fi­ca­tions.”



“There will be an in­creased cost of do­ing busi­ness this will af­fect every­one across the sec­tor, not just the re­tail sec­tor, but many many or­gan­i­sa­tions that do im­ports be­cause if this is go­ing to add some­thing to the cost of do­ing busi­ness then that will have a neg­a­tive ef­fect,” Diptee said.

“We are in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers to re­al­ly get an idea of how the bot­tom line will be af­fect­ed. This is some­thing that took us quite by sur­prise at a time when we are do­ing our best to con­trol the cost of do­ing busi­ness which is some­thing we don’t re­al­ly have con­trol over but which is some­thing which we ac­tive­ly seek in the cus­tomers best in­ter­est,” Diptee said.

Diptee said this move can have a neg­a­tive im­pact go­ing for­ward.

“Any­thing on a pre-con­trac­tu­al ba­sis will be held at agreed prices but cer­tain­ly mov­ing for­ward this is go­ing to have an im­pact yet to be mea­sured on how this will af­fect the av­er­age cus­tomer and this is some­thing that we are talk­ing to a lot of par­ties about, a lot of groups, a lot of busi­ness en­ti­ties and try­ing to get a han­dle on how this will af­fect us be­cause this has mas­sive ram­i­fi­ca­tions mov­ing for­ward for the in­dus­try,” Diptee said.

Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­DA) Visham Bab­wah said this was an­oth­er pos­si­ble nail in the cof­fin to the in­dus­try.

“This is go­ing to have a se­ri­ous­ly neg­a­tive im­pact on our busi­ness­es be­cause of the fact that when we pur­chase stuff we have to pay in US but we usu­al­ly pay the freight in TT dol­lars here so now we will have to find ad­di­tion­al US, which is al­ready scarce, to pay the freight amount so it will mean that the al­lo­ca­tion that we are get­ting from the com­mer­cial banks to pur­chase goods will now have to go to­ward pay­ing freight al­so,” Bab­wah said.

Bab­wah said get­ting US dol­lars from com­mer­cial banks al­ready has its chal­lenges.

“Get­ting the al­lo­ca­tion is al­ways dif­fi­cult and the al­lo­ca­tion every so of­ten it is be­ing re­duced so we are get­ting a less­er amount from six months ago, and from three months ago, the amount keeps go­ing down,” Bab­wah said.

“We are go­ing to have to pur­chase less be­cause the al­lo­ca­tion is not go­ing up from the bank,” he said.

Bab­wah said PriceS­mart is one of this coun­try’’s largest im­porters and users of for­eign ex­change but that forex is “repa­tri­at­ed.”

“You are giv­ing them the US dol­lars they are repa­tri­at­ing it, they are bring­ing what­ev­er goods they are sell­ing in Trinidad and now we have to pay US dol­lars in freight and in goods. The com­pa­nies here the agents of these ship­ping lines should al­so let the ship­ping lines know that a cer­tain amount can be col­lect­ed in TT dol­lars I don’t know if they have that but they need to un­der­stand that it is a prob­lem with our Forex sit­u­a­tion and it will run the busi­ness­es in se­ri­ous prob­lems if we have to pay all of these amounts in US dol­lars,” Bab­wah said.

Bab­wah said he ex­pects the sit­u­a­tion will re­sult in high­er prices and not on­ly for cars but most im­port­ed items.



“It will af­fect prices too be­cause re­mem­ber then you have a high­er de­mand for the goods be­cause you will be im­port­ing less the high­er de­mand for the goods what­ev­er item it may be once de­mand be­comes high­er now of course peo­ple will raise prices,” Bab­wah said.

“From our point of view we have been get­ting the hot end of the stick from the gov­ern­ment, the re­al hot end of the stick in terms of re­stric­tions and now with the ship­ping lines putting this type of pres­sure on lo­cal busi­ness­es it seems very un­fair,” he said.

Bab­wah called for at least 50 per cent of the freight charges be­ing ac­cept­ed in TT in­stead of a full change.

Ear­li­er this month PriceS­mart an­nounced its forex dif­fi­cul­ties.

“Please note that as for­eign cur­ren­cy be­comes less avail­able, our reg­u­lar sourc­ing and mer­chan­dis­ing of im­port­ed goods may be af­fect­ed in our clubs,” PriceS­mart stat­ed.

“We want to ex­press our com­mit­ment on main­tain­ing our busi­ness mod­el of pro­vid­ing the high­est qual­i­ty mer­chan­dise and ser­vice at the low­est cost pos­si­ble as we work out so­lu­tions that can sus­tain or sub­sti­tute our im­port­ed mer­chan­dise of­fer­ing,” it stat­ed.

“’We un­der­stand the val­ue that our se­lec­tion of items de­liv­ers, and we are work­ing dili­gent­ly to re­store any changes to our mem­bers’ reg­u­lar shop­ping cart,” it stat­ed.

[zoom rader]

I see ppl are blaming the companies yet we forget the aim of any business is to make a profit not to feed us that is secondary, why is no one blaming the government for their ability to regulate US dollars in the system or lack thereof ?

Red Government made the TT dollar too too paper

Four ship­ping com­pa­nies not ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars from next month

TTD like “mo­nop­oly mon­ey” says Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion head

Fear of hike in prices due to changes

From next month four ship­ping com­pa­nies in this coun­try will no longer be ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars from cus­tomers wish­ing to im­port items here, in­stead, they will on­ly be ac­cept­ing pay­ment of freight charges in Unit­ed States dol­lars.



This has led to con­cern from some busi­ness that it could mean high­er prices for con­sumers and if not more prob­lems for them to im­port the items they sell.

The four ship­ping agents are said to King Ocean Ser­vices, Trop­i­cal Ex­press Couri­ers, Crow­ley Trinidad Lim­it­ed and Seaboard Ma­rine (Trinidad) Ltd.

“Seaboard Ma­rine wish­es to ad­vise our val­ued cus­tomers that ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 17, 2021, we have adopt­ed a pol­i­cy re­quir­ing all freight charges paid in Trinidad to be done in US dol­lars,” a re­lease from Seaboard Ma­rine stat­ed.

“The con­tin­ued dif­fi­cul­ty of con­vert­ing Trinidad & To­ba­go dol­lars in­to U.S. dol­lars has made adop­tion of this pol­i­cy nec­es­sary and is ap­plic­a­ble on all charges list­ed on Car­ri­er’s bills of lad­ing. As al­ways, we thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port,” it stat­ed.

Pres­i­dent of the Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) Gar­ry Dal­la Cos­ta said while the en­tire fra­ter­ni­ty has not tak­en a sim­i­lar de­ci­sion he un­der­stands the “log­ic” be­hind the move tak­en by the four ship­ping agents.

SATT has over two dozen ship­ping agents as mem­bers.

“These ship­ping com­pa­nies have been col­lect­ing freight in T&T dol­lars, they have been ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars and there is one par­tic­u­lar com­pa­ny who has just about $50 mil­lion in TT sit­ting in the bank in Trinidad and there is no means of hav­ing it con­vert­ed. So, by and large, they don’t have any re­al ac­cess to the mon­ey,” Dal­la Cos­ta said.

“Then there’s a sec­ond prob­lem us­ing the mon­ey. The oil com­pa­nies in Trinidad if you’re buy­ing fu­el off tankers they are not ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars, they have to pay in US dol­lars so this is a sit­u­a­tion where the TT dol­lar ba­si­cal­ly to them is just mo­nop­oly mon­ey, you can­not use it,” he said.

Dal­la Cos­ta said un­less that sit­u­a­tion is changed and there is some means of hav­ing the TT dol­lars con­vert­ed “then re­al­ly the ship­ping lines do not have a choice at this time.”

“I plan on hav­ing a meet­ing with the as­so­ci­a­tion’s mem­bers on it and we will be ap­proach­ing the min­is­ter of fi­nance in the ear­ly new year to dis­cuss it,” Dal­la Cos­ta said.”

“You can­not op­er­ate an op­er­a­tion like this in an ad hoc man­ner you have to have prop­er­ly de­fined reg­u­la­tions in how we do busi­ness so I can see go­ing for­ward un­less this is done we are go­ing to have a prob­lem with freight pay­ments in Trinidad,” Dal­la Cos­ta warned.

Pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Ra­jiv Diptee said the as­so­ci­a­tion as tak­en by sur­prise by the an­nounce­ment and said it will have “mas­sive ram­i­fi­ca­tions.”



“There will be an in­creased cost of do­ing busi­ness this will af­fect every­one across the sec­tor, not just the re­tail sec­tor, but many many or­gan­i­sa­tions that do im­ports be­cause if this is go­ing to add some­thing to the cost of do­ing busi­ness then that will have a neg­a­tive ef­fect,” Diptee said.

“We are in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers to re­al­ly get an idea of how the bot­tom line will be af­fect­ed. This is some­thing that took us quite by sur­prise at a time when we are do­ing our best to con­trol the cost of do­ing busi­ness which is some­thing we don’t re­al­ly have con­trol over but which is some­thing which we ac­tive­ly seek in the cus­tomers best in­ter­est,” Diptee said.

Diptee said this move can have a neg­a­tive im­pact go­ing for­ward.

“Any­thing on a pre-con­trac­tu­al ba­sis will be held at agreed prices but cer­tain­ly mov­ing for­ward this is go­ing to have an im­pact yet to be mea­sured on how this will af­fect the av­er­age cus­tomer and this is some­thing that we are talk­ing to a lot of par­ties about, a lot of groups, a lot of busi­ness en­ti­ties and try­ing to get a han­dle on how this will af­fect us be­cause this has mas­sive ram­i­fi­ca­tions mov­ing for­ward for the in­dus­try,” Diptee said.

Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­DA) Visham Bab­wah said this was an­oth­er pos­si­ble nail in the cof­fin to the in­dus­try.

“This is go­ing to have a se­ri­ous­ly neg­a­tive im­pact on our busi­ness­es be­cause of the fact that when we pur­chase stuff we have to pay in US but we usu­al­ly pay the freight in TT dol­lars here so now we will have to find ad­di­tion­al US, which is al­ready scarce, to pay the freight amount so it will mean that the al­lo­ca­tion that we are get­ting from the com­mer­cial banks to pur­chase goods will now have to go to­ward pay­ing freight al­so,” Bab­wah said.

Bab­wah said get­ting US dol­lars from com­mer­cial banks al­ready has its chal­lenges.

“Get­ting the al­lo­ca­tion is al­ways dif­fi­cult and the al­lo­ca­tion every so of­ten it is be­ing re­duced so we are get­ting a less­er amount from six months ago, and from three months ago, the amount keeps go­ing down,” Bab­wah said.

“We are go­ing to have to pur­chase less be­cause the al­lo­ca­tion is not go­ing up from the bank,” he said.

Bab­wah said PriceS­mart is one of this coun­try’’s largest im­porters and users of for­eign ex­change but that forex is “repa­tri­at­ed.”

“You are giv­ing them the US dol­lars they are repa­tri­at­ing it, they are bring­ing what­ev­er goods they are sell­ing in Trinidad and now we have to pay US dol­lars in freight and in goods. The com­pa­nies here the agents of these ship­ping lines should al­so let the ship­ping lines know that a cer­tain amount can be col­lect­ed in TT dol­lars I don’t know if they have that but they need to un­der­stand that it is a prob­lem with our Forex sit­u­a­tion and it will run the busi­ness­es in se­ri­ous prob­lems if we have to pay all of these amounts in US dol­lars,” Bab­wah said.

Bab­wah said he ex­pects the sit­u­a­tion will re­sult in high­er prices and not on­ly for cars but most im­port­ed items.



“It will af­fect prices too be­cause re­mem­ber then you have a high­er de­mand for the goods be­cause you will be im­port­ing less the high­er de­mand for the goods what­ev­er item it may be once de­mand be­comes high­er now of course peo­ple will raise prices,” Bab­wah said.

“From our point of view we have been get­ting the hot end of the stick from the gov­ern­ment, the re­al hot end of the stick in terms of re­stric­tions and now with the ship­ping lines putting this type of pres­sure on lo­cal busi­ness­es it seems very un­fair,” he said.

Bab­wah called for at least 50 per cent of the freight charges be­ing ac­cept­ed in TT in­stead of a full change.

Ear­li­er this month PriceS­mart an­nounced its forex dif­fi­cul­ties.

“Please note that as for­eign cur­ren­cy be­comes less avail­able, our reg­u­lar sourc­ing and mer­chan­dis­ing of im­port­ed goods may be af­fect­ed in our clubs,” PriceS­mart stat­ed.

“We want to ex­press our com­mit­ment on main­tain­ing our busi­ness mod­el of pro­vid­ing the high­est qual­i­ty mer­chan­dise and ser­vice at the low­est cost pos­si­ble as we work out so­lu­tions that can sus­tain or sub­sti­tute our im­port­ed mer­chan­dise of­fer­ing,” it stat­ed.

“’We un­der­stand the val­ue that our se­lec­tion of items de­liv­ers, and we are work­ing dili­gent­ly to re­store any changes to our mem­bers’ reg­u­lar shop­ping cart,” it stat­ed.

Cause the red Goverment made a mess of forex by letting 1% tote away the US .

Now the red Goverment is in a hard rock position as the 1% are waiting for devaluation to cash in on the US that they hoarded away from TT.

Seems Rowlee not playing their game so the citizens have to pay the price.

320000 ppl got played

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But how long can this last for, is only a matter of time , seems they forced his hand on this matter

I see ppl are blaming the companies yet we forget the aim of any business is to make a profit not to feed us that is secondary, why is no one blaming the government for their ability to regulate US dollars in the system or lack thereof ?

Red Government made the TT dollar too too paper

Four ship­ping com­pa­nies not ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars from next month

TTD like “mo­nop­oly mon­ey” says Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion head

Fear of hike in prices due to changes

From next month four ship­ping com­pa­nies in this coun­try will no longer be ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars from cus­tomers wish­ing to im­port items here, in­stead, they will on­ly be ac­cept­ing pay­ment of freight charges in Unit­ed States dol­lars.



This has led to con­cern from some busi­ness that it could mean high­er prices for con­sumers and if not more prob­lems for them to im­port the items they sell.

The four ship­ping agents are said to King Ocean Ser­vices, Trop­i­cal Ex­press Couri­ers, Crow­ley Trinidad Lim­it­ed and Seaboard Ma­rine (Trinidad) Ltd.

“Seaboard Ma­rine wish­es to ad­vise our val­ued cus­tomers that ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 17, 2021, we have adopt­ed a pol­i­cy re­quir­ing all freight charges paid in Trinidad to be done in US dol­lars,” a re­lease from Seaboard Ma­rine stat­ed.

“The con­tin­ued dif­fi­cul­ty of con­vert­ing Trinidad & To­ba­go dol­lars in­to U.S. dol­lars has made adop­tion of this pol­i­cy nec­es­sary and is ap­plic­a­ble on all charges list­ed on Car­ri­er’s bills of lad­ing. As al­ways, we thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port,” it stat­ed.

Pres­i­dent of the Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) Gar­ry Dal­la Cos­ta said while the en­tire fra­ter­ni­ty has not tak­en a sim­i­lar de­ci­sion he un­der­stands the “log­ic” be­hind the move tak­en by the four ship­ping agents.

SATT has over two dozen ship­ping agents as mem­bers.

“These ship­ping com­pa­nies have been col­lect­ing freight in T&T dol­lars, they have been ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars and there is one par­tic­u­lar com­pa­ny who has just about $50 mil­lion in TT sit­ting in the bank in Trinidad and there is no means of hav­ing it con­vert­ed. So, by and large, they don’t have any re­al ac­cess to the mon­ey,” Dal­la Cos­ta said.

“Then there’s a sec­ond prob­lem us­ing the mon­ey. The oil com­pa­nies in Trinidad if you’re buy­ing fu­el off tankers they are not ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars, they have to pay in US dol­lars so this is a sit­u­a­tion where the TT dol­lar ba­si­cal­ly to them is just mo­nop­oly mon­ey, you can­not use it,” he said.

Dal­la Cos­ta said un­less that sit­u­a­tion is changed and there is some means of hav­ing the TT dol­lars con­vert­ed “then re­al­ly the ship­ping lines do not have a choice at this time.”

“I plan on hav­ing a meet­ing with the as­so­ci­a­tion’s mem­bers on it and we will be ap­proach­ing the min­is­ter of fi­nance in the ear­ly new year to dis­cuss it,” Dal­la Cos­ta said.”

“You can­not op­er­ate an op­er­a­tion like this in an ad hoc man­ner you have to have prop­er­ly de­fined reg­u­la­tions in how we do busi­ness so I can see go­ing for­ward un­less this is done we are go­ing to have a prob­lem with freight pay­ments in Trinidad,” Dal­la Cos­ta warned.

Pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Ra­jiv Diptee said the as­so­ci­a­tion as tak­en by sur­prise by the an­nounce­ment and said it will have “mas­sive ram­i­fi­ca­tions.”



“There will be an in­creased cost of do­ing busi­ness this will af­fect every­one across the sec­tor, not just the re­tail sec­tor, but many many or­gan­i­sa­tions that do im­ports be­cause if this is go­ing to add some­thing to the cost of do­ing busi­ness then that will have a neg­a­tive ef­fect,” Diptee said.

“We are in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers to re­al­ly get an idea of how the bot­tom line will be af­fect­ed. This is some­thing that took us quite by sur­prise at a time when we are do­ing our best to con­trol the cost of do­ing busi­ness which is some­thing we don’t re­al­ly have con­trol over but which is some­thing which we ac­tive­ly seek in the cus­tomers best in­ter­est,” Diptee said.

Diptee said this move can have a neg­a­tive im­pact go­ing for­ward.

“Any­thing on a pre-con­trac­tu­al ba­sis will be held at agreed prices but cer­tain­ly mov­ing for­ward this is go­ing to have an im­pact yet to be mea­sured on how this will af­fect the av­er­age cus­tomer and this is some­thing that we are talk­ing to a lot of par­ties about, a lot of groups, a lot of busi­ness en­ti­ties and try­ing to get a han­dle on how this will af­fect us be­cause this has mas­sive ram­i­fi­ca­tions mov­ing for­ward for the in­dus­try,” Diptee said.

Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­DA) Visham Bab­wah said this was an­oth­er pos­si­ble nail in the cof­fin to the in­dus­try.

“This is go­ing to have a se­ri­ous­ly neg­a­tive im­pact on our busi­ness­es be­cause of the fact that when we pur­chase stuff we have to pay in US but we usu­al­ly pay the freight in TT dol­lars here so now we will have to find ad­di­tion­al US, which is al­ready scarce, to pay the freight amount so it will mean that the al­lo­ca­tion that we are get­ting from the com­mer­cial banks to pur­chase goods will now have to go to­ward pay­ing freight al­so,” Bab­wah said.

Bab­wah said get­ting US dol­lars from com­mer­cial banks al­ready has its chal­lenges.

“Get­ting the al­lo­ca­tion is al­ways dif­fi­cult and the al­lo­ca­tion every so of­ten it is be­ing re­duced so we are get­ting a less­er amount from six months ago, and from three months ago, the amount keeps go­ing down,” Bab­wah said.

“We are go­ing to have to pur­chase less be­cause the al­lo­ca­tion is not go­ing up from the bank,” he said.

Bab­wah said PriceS­mart is one of this coun­try’’s largest im­porters and users of for­eign ex­change but that forex is “repa­tri­at­ed.”

“You are giv­ing them the US dol­lars they are repa­tri­at­ing it, they are bring­ing what­ev­er goods they are sell­ing in Trinidad and now we have to pay US dol­lars in freight and in goods. The com­pa­nies here the agents of these ship­ping lines should al­so let the ship­ping lines know that a cer­tain amount can be col­lect­ed in TT dol­lars I don’t know if they have that but they need to un­der­stand that it is a prob­lem with our Forex sit­u­a­tion and it will run the busi­ness­es in se­ri­ous prob­lems if we have to pay all of these amounts in US dol­lars,” Bab­wah said.

Bab­wah said he ex­pects the sit­u­a­tion will re­sult in high­er prices and not on­ly for cars but most im­port­ed items.



“It will af­fect prices too be­cause re­mem­ber then you have a high­er de­mand for the goods be­cause you will be im­port­ing less the high­er de­mand for the goods what­ev­er item it may be once de­mand be­comes high­er now of course peo­ple will raise prices,” Bab­wah said.

“From our point of view we have been get­ting the hot end of the stick from the gov­ern­ment, the re­al hot end of the stick in terms of re­stric­tions and now with the ship­ping lines putting this type of pres­sure on lo­cal busi­ness­es it seems very un­fair,” he said.

Bab­wah called for at least 50 per cent of the freight charges be­ing ac­cept­ed in TT in­stead of a full change.

Ear­li­er this month PriceS­mart an­nounced its forex dif­fi­cul­ties.

“Please note that as for­eign cur­ren­cy be­comes less avail­able, our reg­u­lar sourc­ing and mer­chan­dis­ing of im­port­ed goods may be af­fect­ed in our clubs,” PriceS­mart stat­ed.

“We want to ex­press our com­mit­ment on main­tain­ing our busi­ness mod­el of pro­vid­ing the high­est qual­i­ty mer­chan­dise and ser­vice at the low­est cost pos­si­ble as we work out so­lu­tions that can sus­tain or sub­sti­tute our im­port­ed mer­chan­dise of­fer­ing,” it stat­ed.

“’We un­der­stand the val­ue that our se­lec­tion of items de­liv­ers, and we are work­ing dili­gent­ly to re­store any changes to our mem­bers’ reg­u­lar shop­ping cart,” it stat­ed.

Cause the red Goverment made a mess of forex by letting 1% tote away the US .

Now the red Goverment is in a hard rock position as the 1% are waiting for devaluation to cash in on the US that they hoarded away from TT.

Seems Rowlee not playing their game so the citizens have to pay the price.

320000 ppl got played

[zoom rader]

But how long can this last for, is only a matter of time , seems they forced his hand on this matter

I see ppl are blaming the companies yet we forget the aim of any business is to make a profit not to feed us that is secondary, why is no one blaming the government for their ability to regulate US dollars in the system or lack thereof ?

Red Government made the TT dollar too too paper

Four ship­ping com­pa­nies not ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars from next month

TTD like “mo­nop­oly mon­ey” says Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion head

Fear of hike in prices due to changes

From next month four ship­ping com­pa­nies in this coun­try will no longer be ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars from cus­tomers wish­ing to im­port items here, in­stead, they will on­ly be ac­cept­ing pay­ment of freight charges in Unit­ed States dol­lars.



This has led to con­cern from some busi­ness that it could mean high­er prices for con­sumers and if not more prob­lems for them to im­port the items they sell.

The four ship­ping agents are said to King Ocean Ser­vices, Trop­i­cal Ex­press Couri­ers, Crow­ley Trinidad Lim­it­ed and Seaboard Ma­rine (Trinidad) Ltd.

“Seaboard Ma­rine wish­es to ad­vise our val­ued cus­tomers that ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 17, 2021, we have adopt­ed a pol­i­cy re­quir­ing all freight charges paid in Trinidad to be done in US dol­lars,” a re­lease from Seaboard Ma­rine stat­ed.

“The con­tin­ued dif­fi­cul­ty of con­vert­ing Trinidad & To­ba­go dol­lars in­to U.S. dol­lars has made adop­tion of this pol­i­cy nec­es­sary and is ap­plic­a­ble on all charges list­ed on Car­ri­er’s bills of lad­ing. As al­ways, we thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port,” it stat­ed.

Pres­i­dent of the Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) Gar­ry Dal­la Cos­ta said while the en­tire fra­ter­ni­ty has not tak­en a sim­i­lar de­ci­sion he un­der­stands the “log­ic” be­hind the move tak­en by the four ship­ping agents.

SATT has over two dozen ship­ping agents as mem­bers.

“These ship­ping com­pa­nies have been col­lect­ing freight in T&T dol­lars, they have been ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars and there is one par­tic­u­lar com­pa­ny who has just about $50 mil­lion in TT sit­ting in the bank in Trinidad and there is no means of hav­ing it con­vert­ed. So, by and large, they don’t have any re­al ac­cess to the mon­ey,” Dal­la Cos­ta said.

“Then there’s a sec­ond prob­lem us­ing the mon­ey. The oil com­pa­nies in Trinidad if you’re buy­ing fu­el off tankers they are not ac­cept­ing TT dol­lars, they have to pay in US dol­lars so this is a sit­u­a­tion where the TT dol­lar ba­si­cal­ly to them is just mo­nop­oly mon­ey, you can­not use it,” he said.

Dal­la Cos­ta said un­less that sit­u­a­tion is changed and there is some means of hav­ing the TT dol­lars con­vert­ed “then re­al­ly the ship­ping lines do not have a choice at this time.”

“I plan on hav­ing a meet­ing with the as­so­ci­a­tion’s mem­bers on it and we will be ap­proach­ing the min­is­ter of fi­nance in the ear­ly new year to dis­cuss it,” Dal­la Cos­ta said.”

“You can­not op­er­ate an op­er­a­tion like this in an ad hoc man­ner you have to have prop­er­ly de­fined reg­u­la­tions in how we do busi­ness so I can see go­ing for­ward un­less this is done we are go­ing to have a prob­lem with freight pay­ments in Trinidad,” Dal­la Cos­ta warned.

Pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Ra­jiv Diptee said the as­so­ci­a­tion as tak­en by sur­prise by the an­nounce­ment and said it will have “mas­sive ram­i­fi­ca­tions.”



“There will be an in­creased cost of do­ing busi­ness this will af­fect every­one across the sec­tor, not just the re­tail sec­tor, but many many or­gan­i­sa­tions that do im­ports be­cause if this is go­ing to add some­thing to the cost of do­ing busi­ness then that will have a neg­a­tive ef­fect,” Diptee said.

“We are in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers to re­al­ly get an idea of how the bot­tom line will be af­fect­ed. This is some­thing that took us quite by sur­prise at a time when we are do­ing our best to con­trol the cost of do­ing busi­ness which is some­thing we don’t re­al­ly have con­trol over but which is some­thing which we ac­tive­ly seek in the cus­tomers best in­ter­est,” Diptee said.

Diptee said this move can have a neg­a­tive im­pact go­ing for­ward.

“Any­thing on a pre-con­trac­tu­al ba­sis will be held at agreed prices but cer­tain­ly mov­ing for­ward this is go­ing to have an im­pact yet to be mea­sured on how this will af­fect the av­er­age cus­tomer and this is some­thing that we are talk­ing to a lot of par­ties about, a lot of groups, a lot of busi­ness en­ti­ties and try­ing to get a han­dle on how this will af­fect us be­cause this has mas­sive ram­i­fi­ca­tions mov­ing for­ward for the in­dus­try,” Diptee said.

Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­DA) Visham Bab­wah said this was an­oth­er pos­si­ble nail in the cof­fin to the in­dus­try.

“This is go­ing to have a se­ri­ous­ly neg­a­tive im­pact on our busi­ness­es be­cause of the fact that when we pur­chase stuff we have to pay in US but we usu­al­ly pay the freight in TT dol­lars here so now we will have to find ad­di­tion­al US, which is al­ready scarce, to pay the freight amount so it will mean that the al­lo­ca­tion that we are get­ting from the com­mer­cial banks to pur­chase goods will now have to go to­ward pay­ing freight al­so,” Bab­wah said.

Bab­wah said get­ting US dol­lars from com­mer­cial banks al­ready has its chal­lenges.

“Get­ting the al­lo­ca­tion is al­ways dif­fi­cult and the al­lo­ca­tion every so of­ten it is be­ing re­duced so we are get­ting a less­er amount from six months ago, and from three months ago, the amount keeps go­ing down,” Bab­wah said.

“We are go­ing to have to pur­chase less be­cause the al­lo­ca­tion is not go­ing up from the bank,” he said.

Bab­wah said PriceS­mart is one of this coun­try’’s largest im­porters and users of for­eign ex­change but that forex is “repa­tri­at­ed.”

“You are giv­ing them the US dol­lars they are repa­tri­at­ing it, they are bring­ing what­ev­er goods they are sell­ing in Trinidad and now we have to pay US dol­lars in freight and in goods. The com­pa­nies here the agents of these ship­ping lines should al­so let the ship­ping lines know that a cer­tain amount can be col­lect­ed in TT dol­lars I don’t know if they have that but they need to un­der­stand that it is a prob­lem with our Forex sit­u­a­tion and it will run the busi­ness­es in se­ri­ous prob­lems if we have to pay all of these amounts in US dol­lars,” Bab­wah said.

Bab­wah said he ex­pects the sit­u­a­tion will re­sult in high­er prices and not on­ly for cars but most im­port­ed items.



“It will af­fect prices too be­cause re­mem­ber then you have a high­er de­mand for the goods be­cause you will be im­port­ing less the high­er de­mand for the goods what­ev­er item it may be once de­mand be­comes high­er now of course peo­ple will raise prices,” Bab­wah said.

“From our point of view we have been get­ting the hot end of the stick from the gov­ern­ment, the re­al hot end of the stick in terms of re­stric­tions and now with the ship­ping lines putting this type of pres­sure on lo­cal busi­ness­es it seems very un­fair,” he said.

Bab­wah called for at least 50 per cent of the freight charges be­ing ac­cept­ed in TT in­stead of a full change.

Ear­li­er this month PriceS­mart an­nounced its forex dif­fi­cul­ties.

“Please note that as for­eign cur­ren­cy be­comes less avail­able, our reg­u­lar sourc­ing and mer­chan­dis­ing of im­port­ed goods may be af­fect­ed in our clubs,” PriceS­mart stat­ed.

“We want to ex­press our com­mit­ment on main­tain­ing our busi­ness mod­el of pro­vid­ing the high­est qual­i­ty mer­chan­dise and ser­vice at the low­est cost pos­si­ble as we work out so­lu­tions that can sus­tain or sub­sti­tute our im­port­ed mer­chan­dise of­fer­ing,” it stat­ed.

“’We un­der­stand the val­ue that our se­lec­tion of items de­liv­ers, and we are work­ing dili­gent­ly to re­store any changes to our mem­bers’ reg­u­lar shop­ping cart,” it stat­ed.

Cause the red Goverment made a mess of forex by letting 1% tote away the US .

Now the red Goverment is in a hard rock position as the 1% are waiting for devaluation to cash in on the US that they hoarded away from TT.

Seems Rowlee not playing their game so the citizens have to pay the price.

320000 ppl got played

Red goverment is not budging

They creating a forced inturnal market, they dont care to attract foreign investment as they have destroyed PT Lisas and the other major industries.

We slowly turning into a Guyana of the 1970s & 1980s

[sMASH]

I thought they were only releasing USD to john public only with proof of travel?

Srs

[Numb3r4]

Long time that was happening, you had to go in with a plane ticket so show you were travelling and then you name was written in a large notebook to the side of the teller.

You were then told to wait.

If you were applying as a family then each person with an account had to go and present themselves so that each would get some.

The best option would be to use your credit card and withdraw some cash at the airport atm (abroad) so you have a little on hand.

I vaguely remember getting what I requested, now mind you I asked for the minimum.

[sMASH]

That is if u had to buy forex?
But what if u have an account and want to withdraw? Like ur own forex?

[VexXx Dogg]

That is if u had to buy forex?
But what if u have an account and want to withdraw? Like ur own forex?

Same song and dance.
The issue is not just leakage but hoarding of paper bills

[paid_influencer]

That is if u had to buy forex?
But what if u have an account and want to withdraw? Like ur own forex?

Same song and dance.
The issue is not just leakage but hoarding of paper bills

is not so much hoarding as arbitrage. Buy at the subsidized rate of 6.8 and sell at the market rate of 8+.

this narrative about hoarding needs to be updated. The paper notes are spent when people go abroad to study, go on vacation, go for business, visit relatives, really anything outside. Is years now you cannot get basic traveling money at the bank. The only way people can get what they need is from the scalpers.

the solution is to pay people the market rate for their US paper notes at the bank. Patrick Manning and his PNM administration figured this out decades ago when they introduced a floating exchange rate. The dollar is supposed to move as a release-value to prevent the same sort of issues we are facing now. Manning would be turning in his grave if he saw what mamaguying as PNM economic policy.

[hover11]

What is the remedy for us to get US in the banks again and why isn't this on front burner of our country , without access to US our economy comes to a halt

That is if u had to buy forex?
But what if u have an account and want to withdraw? Like ur own forex?

Same song and dance.
The issue is not just leakage but hoarding of paper bills

is not so much hoarding as arbitrage. Buy at the subsidized rate of 6.8 and sell at the market rate of 8+.

this narrative about hoarding needs to be updated. The paper notes are spent when people go abroad to study, go on vacation, go for business, visit relatives, really anything outside. Is years now you cannot get basic traveling money at the bank. The only way people can get what they need is from the scalpers.

the solution is to pay people the market rate for their US paper notes at the bank. Patrick Manning and his PNM administration figured this out decades ago when they introduced a floating exchange rate. The dollar is supposed to move as a release-value to prevent the same sort of issues we are facing now. Manning would be turning in his grave if he saw what mamaguying as PNM economic policy.

[sMASH]

generally speaking, the country as a whole, need to be selling more stuff, than buying. u need to produce sumting that some persons willing to give forex in exchange for, that will reach the treasury. in the past was oil, gas and their products. but when u importing green fig and dasheen from st vincent, that is leaking our forex.
that that is because it easier to take some forex and buy it fromthere than pay tt and buy it from here. cause who ever getting the forex getting it cheap.

increase the price of the forex, and it would be harder to buy green fig and dasheen with forex and easier to buy it locally.

[hover11]

When you say increase the price of forex you mean a devaluation ? But impsbert the best finance minister said that dont make sense yet our dollar is seriously overvalued

generally speaking, the country as a whole, need to be selling more stuff, than buying. u need to produce sumting that some persons willing to give forex in exchange for, that will reach the treasury. in the past was oil, gas and their products. but when u importing green fig and dasheen from st vincent, that is leaking our forex.
that that is because it easier to take some forex and buy it fromthere than pay tt and buy it from here. cause who ever getting the forex getting it cheap.

increase the price of the forex, and it would be harder to buy green fig and dasheen with forex and easier to buy it locally.

[sMASH]

When you say increase the price of forex you mean a devaluation ? But impsbert the best finance minister said that dont make sense yet our dollar is seriously overvalued

generally speaking, the country as a whole, need to be selling more stuff, than buying. u need to produce sumting that some persons willing to give forex in exchange for, that will reach the treasury. in the past was oil, gas and their products. but when u importing green fig and dasheen from st vincent, that is leaking our forex.
that that is because it easier to take some forex and buy it fromthere than pay tt and buy it from here. cause who ever getting the forex getting it cheap.

increase the price of the forex, and it would be harder to buy green fig and dasheen with forex and easier to buy it locally.

That's should have happened years ago, even a decade. Like Continuously being inched up.

What Mr minister did by managing who get is to make sure their preferred people get and the average man get salt, and by keeping the price low, who ever get would get it at thst low price.


So imagine the people who importing Porsche and Prado getting the same price as those importing tires and fones.

Some are needs and some we don't need.


Imo should increase devalue the dollar so thst who absolutely need to use it will think hard and if u really want to splurge u will pay the extra.

[paid_influencer]

going back to the shipping issue and TT Dollar no longer being accepted for payment...

this was really expertly handled by the administration.

first they deny it happened, no news article except social media posts from the "Concerned citizens of Gasparillo." Then Guardian comes out and says it did happen but is only two shipping lines (Seaboard Marine and King Ocean). Then a few days later they say really it was four lines (Crowley, Tropical, Seaboard and King Ocean).

the effect is the general blunting of the population's response. People still reacting like this did not happen.

[paid_influencer]

one of the shipping companies has 50 million TTD sitting in a bank account that they cannot use or convert (from the Guardian article). Doh blame them, the system itself has shut down

[unimatrix-001]

Not to worry, soon we will be exporting the little O&G and petrochemicals we have in exchange for Renminbi. We will then be able to buy Zotye instead of Porsche, and Dadi Shuttle instead of Prado.
COSCO will be then be the major shipping company operating, and we can buy all electronics directly from the manufacturer...possible even cheaper too... WhatsApp and WiPay will be replaced by WeChat Pay, and there will be no need for Amazon and Skyboxes...only AliExpress and Alibaba

[hover11]

When Credit Card with a PLATINUM limit "bounce"due to regime monitoring policy....We soon will go back to Re Soleing our once expensive shoes...Thrift and Self reliance 2021 Go to STATE...We have become a little foreign entity even an appetite for Japan's Automotive three year law left overs to promote new car sales in there territory...Tighten our seat belts because the rollercoaster ride ain't far from finish...

[fireworks]

Dollar Rescue go make a comeback

[zoom rader]

Few will know of dollar rescure

Dollar Rescue go make a comeback

[SuperiorMan]

Few will know of dollar rescure

Dollar Rescue go make a comeback

Hello Zoom.

What was dollar rescue?

[Dizzy28]

Few will know of dollar rescure

Dollar Rescue go make a comeback

Hello Zoom.

What was dollar rescue?

Serious question?
How young are you??

[SuperiorMan]

Few will know of dollar rescure

Dollar Rescue go make a comeback

Hello Zoom.

What was dollar rescue?

Serious question?
How young are you??

Thanks for your response.

Maybe a bit too young to know about this! Can you explain what it was?

[zoom rader]

Few will know of dollar rescure

Dollar Rescue go make a comeback

Hello Zoom.

What was dollar rescue?

Serious question?
How young are you??

Thanks for your response.

Maybe a bit too young to know about this! Can you explain what it was?

It was a trading store that brought stuff from you and then resold it to make a profit for themselves.

A used items store.

[MG Man]

Few will know of dollar rescure

Dollar Rescue go make a comeback

Hello Zoom.

What was dollar rescue?

Serious question?
How young are you??

Thanks for your response.

Maybe a bit too young to know about this! Can you explain what it was?

Dollar Rescue does buy
Dollar Rescue does sell
No mamaguille, no ketchin hell
Ask beulah, she will tell

[Dizzy28]

Companies Registry has a Dollar Rescue listed as active though.

[eliteauto]

Dollar Rescue was the best place to get old stereos and power tools back in the day

[Mmoney607]

Is there any safe way to sell US on the black market that does not involve exchange of physical cash? Like an online bank transfer.

[Dizzy28]

Is there any safe way to sell US on the black market that does not involve exchange of physical cash? Like an online bank transfer.

You asking for advice on how to conduct an illegal activity on a public forum brah??

[paid_influencer]

Is there any safe way to sell US on the black market that does not involve exchange of physical cash? Like an online bank transfer.

usually you have to set up a 'procurement' company that accepts TT$ funds locally and pays for US$ invoices abroad.

It is legal, though the foreign government might try to see where you are getting funds from and have money laundering investigations.

google black market peso exchange

[Mmoney607]

Yo I was just referring to say someone want to buy US from you but just with no exchange of physical cash