Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley has indicated a willingness to work towards addressing the ongoing situation in the twin island republic whereby Vincentian traders are unable to buy Eastern Caribbean dollars after conducting their business there.
This situation has resulted in Vincentian traders having a stockpile of Trinidad and Tobago currency in Port of Spain.
Local farmers were therefore becoming reluctant to sell their produce to those traders, since they were not receiving payment in a timely manner, due to the foreign exchange issue out of Trinidad.
This country’s Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves who has been quite vocal on this issue, said he had discussions on the matter with his Trinidadian counterpart at the 29th Inter-sessional Summit of CARICOM Heads of Government in Haiti, which ended on Tuesday.
Speaking yesterday on the Shakeup program here on WEFM, via telephone from Haiti, Prime Minister Gonsalves said Dr. Rowley give the assurance that he will begin working to address this issue upon return to Trinidad.
In order to ensure that local farmers and exporters receive payment for their produce sold in Trinidad in a timely manner, the government here in collaboration with the Bank of SVG devised a short term foreign exchange solution to allow Vincentian traders to convert their Trinidad and Tobago dollars to Eastern Caribbean dollars.
