Heritage fund at TT$29.6B; expected to reach TT$31.5B by end of the year: Howai

File: Larry Howai

Trinidad and Tobago's Heritage and Stabilisation Fund currently has a balance of US$4.7 billion (TT$29.6B) and it is expected that it would reach US$5 Billion (TT$31.5B) by the end of the year.

Finance Minister Larry Howai gave the figures at Thursday's post cabinet briefing. He said his Ministry was in completing a review of the fund, which will soon be tabled in Parliament.

However the minister said there are no plans to relax the rules governing the "rainy day" fund. 

“We will prefer if we continue with a relatively conservative investment policy since the fund is not a big one. We would like to tighten up the process and make it more transparent. Make it more rigorous for anyone assessing funds from it. We are not loosening up the arrangements, so that we will be protecting the fund in the years to come,” Howai said.

Howai said the fund attracted at interest rate of 10.73 per cent last year, which he described as good in the context of the low interest rates in the international market.

“This will continue to grow from that time till now. We are in the process of reviewing the fund for the first part of this year,” Howai told reporters.

“This country’s reserves remain strong and so we enjoy high ratings. The price of oil and gas remain over the projected range in the budget,” Howai explained.