Trinidad Rules Out Creating Offshore Financial Hub

Tom Burroughes

3 April 2008

Traditional offshore banking will not be a service offered by the proposed Trinidad and Tobago International Financial Centre, the Caribbean island’s government has said, outlining plans to create a financial hub in the country. The comment was made by finance minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira as she announced moves by the country to remove its reliance on oil and gas as a source of economic growth, according to the Trinidad & Tobago Express. “We envisage that the (Trinidad and Tobago International Financial Centre) will be a designated hub that will provide a range of front-office financial services, including but not limited to banking, asset management, capital markets activities, specialised insurance operations and futures transactions on the international commodities markets. It will not be involved in traditional offshore banking activities,” she was quoted by the newspaper as saying. The minister’s comment comes at a time when offshore financial centres have been under pressure from major industrialised nations to disclose more about the money held there by non-domestic clients. The Paris-based OECD has said there are up to 40 so-called tax havens around the world.