Budget 2025: Key announcements by Finance Minister Colm Imbert

The fol­low­ing are some of the key high­lights of the 2025 Bud­get de­liv­ered by Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024:

Bud­get Theme

Stead­fast and res­olute, forg­ing path­ways to pros­per­i­ty

Es­ti­mates of Rev­enue & Ex­pen­di­ture

To­tal Bud­get Rev­enue – $54.224B

To­tal Bud­get Ex­pen­di­ture – $59.741B

Fis­cal Deficit – $5.517B

Bud­get up­dates com­piled by CNC3 & Trinidad Guardian

To­ba­go

To­tal al­lo­ca­tion – $2.599B

Re­cur­rent Ex­pen­di­ture – $2.376B

De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme – $205M

URP – $18M

CEPEP – $9.2M

Bud­get up­dates com­piled by CNC3 & Trinidad Guardian

En­er­gy price as­sump­tions

Oil – US$77.80 per bar­rel

Nat­ur­al Gas – US$3.59 per MMB­tu

Bud­get up­dates com­piled by CNC3 & Trinidad Guardian

Key al­lo­ca­tions

Ed­u­ca­tion – $7.512B

Health – $7.571B

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty – $6.113B

Pub­lic Util­i­ties – $3.221B

In­fra­struc­ture – $1.862B

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment & Lo­cal Govt – $1.771B

Trans­port – $1.410B

Agri­cul­ture – $1.184B

Hous­ing – $750M

Bud­get up­dates com­piled by CNC3 & Trinidad Guardian

Mea­sures        

Pub­lic sec­tor min­i­mum wage in­creas­es from $20.50 to $22.50/hour from Nov 2024        

Of­fer of 5% in­crease to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers for pe­ri­od 2020-2022

Back­pay for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers at end of 2024 if new agree­ments met

All sports equip­ment (ex­cept cloth­ing) is ex­empt from tax­es & du­ties from Jan 1

Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es owed re­funds will be paid in cash by Dec 31, 2024

3-month tax amnesty from Oc­to­ber to De­cem­ber, 2024

Magde­le­na Ho­tel to be of­fered for sale or lease

Re­quest for pro­pos­al for new 5-star re­sort ho­tel on Buc­coo Es­tate

Re­quest for pro­pos­al to de­vel­op yacht­ing ma­ri­na in Low­lands, To­ba­go

Govt to sell 49% share­hold­ing in Cli­co

Govt to sell or lease Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery

Bud­get up­dates com­piled by CNC3 & Trinidad Guardian

Im­bert: Econ­o­my is stronger, more re­silient than be­fore COVID-19

Re­al GDP to in­crease to 1.9% in 2024, dri­ven by a 2.4% rise in the non-oil sec­tor

In­fla­tion de­clined to 0.3% in Ju­ly 2024

For­eign re­serves at US$5.5B or over 7 months cov­er

Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund stands at US$6.1B

No in­ten­tion of us­ing TTRA to go af­ter lit­tle peo­ple like nuts ven­dors

On­line bank trans­fers and card pay­ments are to be al­lowed for Prop­er­ty Tax

89,441 res­i­den­tial own­ers have paid tax­es of $91M in rev­enue

Full procla­ma­tion of the Gam­bling Act in Jan­u­ary 2025

Sub­sidised mort­gage loans cost Govt more than $4B

Bud­get up­dates com­piled by CNC3 & Trinidad Guardian

From Jan-Aug T&T Mort­gage Bank raised $797M to meet new loan de­mands

Cu­mu­to to San­gre Grande High­way near­ing com­ple­tion

100 new road paving projects to cost $210M in 2025

New To­ba­go air­port could ac­com­mo­date 3 mil­lion pas­sen­gers per year

ANR Robin­son Air­port to be com­plet­ed in 2025 cost­ing US$130M

An­oth­er deep­wa­ter bid round be­fore the end of 2024

T&T earned more than US$1B from new LNG pric­ing arrange­ments

Tar­get by 2025, 30% of en­er­gy needs from re­new­able en­er­gy

In 2025, over 150 firms will re­ceive sup­port to im­prove tech­nol­o­gy

Air ar­rivals to T&T in 2023 surged by 36% year-on-year

Bud­get up­dates com­piled by CNC3 & Trinidad Guardian

End-of-year 2024 vis­i­tor ar­rivals ex­pect­ed to vast­ly sur­pass 2023

Caribbean Air­lines ap­proved to ac­quire more air­craft

Aim­ing to im­prove cruise tourism ar­rivals to 500,000 by 2026

$56M ren­o­va­tion of Magde­le­na Grand Ho­tel un­der­way

Ap­pli­ca­tions ex­pect­ed from 3 in­ter­na­tion­al­ly brand­ed ho­tels in 2025

Govt to pur­chase of 2 fixed-wing air­craft for bor­der pa­trol by 2027

By 2027, Govt to pur­chase 12 Coast Guard ves­sels

In 2025, Im­mi­gra­tion will in­tro­duce an au­to­mat­ed fin­ger­print iden­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem

Im­ple­men­ta­tion of on­line dig­i­tal em­barka­tion and dis­em­barka­tion card in 2025

Con­ver­sion from ma­chine-read­able to e-pass­ports ex­pect­ed from 2025

Bud­get up­dates com­piled by CNC3 & Trinidad Guardian

Po­lice to ac­quire 2000 ve­hi­cles over the next 3 years, 500 in the first phase

New po­lice train­ing fa­cil­i­ty to be es­tab­lished in Cu­mu­to

Phoenix Park do­nat­ed US$10M in can­cer di­ag­nos­tic tech­nol­o­gy

Govt giv­en 8 ad­vanced health­care ro­bots from In­dia val­ued at US$1M

Cen­tral block of Port-of-Spain Hos­pi­tal 60% com­plet­ed, to open March 2025

E-text­books as part of e-learn­ing sys­tem in schools by June 2025

Book grant sys­tem to con­tin­ue in 2025 at cost of $20M; 20,000 ben­e­fit­ed in 2024

GATE to un­der­go en­hance­ments in 4th quar­ter of 2024

Govt to set­tle any mu­tu­al­ly agreed out­stand­ing UWI ar­rears in 2025

Govt to in­stall 2500 LED lu­mi­naires, up­grade 300 street­lights along ma­jor high­ways

Bud­get up­dates com­piled by CNC3 & Trinidad Guardian

RIC’s price re­view for elec­tric­i­ty is still be­ing con­sid­ered by Govt       

Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment & Na­tion­al Ser­vice gets $338M in 2025 and an­oth­er $150M to be made avail­able for Youth in Agri­cul­ture pro­gramme