On his first official visit to Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada’s Prime Minister Tillman Thomas has challenged local businessmen to invest and help build a new Grenada.
Prime Minister Thomas made an offer to investors from Trinidad and Tobago and other Caribbean Islands tax breaks and a new investment code that will stimulate the Grenada economy. Thomas issued the challenge at a Republic Bank luncheon in his honour at the Trinidad Hilton.
“Visit Grenada and embrace the opportunities. We urge you to immediately engage us. Explore the available opportunities for collaboration, participation and investment,” he added.
The Grenadian prime minister spoke of proposed initiatives to make foreign investment more attractive in his country. “My administration will shortly enact a new investment code that will give both local and foreign investors a predictable fiscal tract to run on.”
He said : “We shall create the institutional framework necessary to enhance the ‘doing business environment’ and curtail those (laws) that constrain business activity.”
Thomas said his Government support the view that Grenada’s economy should be a private-sector-led and the government’s role should be “to create the environment for the private sector to thrive.”
He mentioned the serious problem faced by his country with regional transportation. The recent increase in the price of airline tickets “adversely undermines” the possibility of an export-led private-sector-led growth in Grenada, he noted.
Thomas and his delegation disembarked from a private jet (which cost the T&T Government an estimated TT$400,000) at Piarco International Airport at 9.35 am yesterday.
They were met by Prime Minister Patrick Manning and several Cabinet Ministers, including Attorney General Bridgid Annisette-George and Foreign Affairs Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon.
Thomas was treated to a short cultural presentation, before departing for closed-door talks with Manning in Port of Spain.
