Fol­low­ing sharp crit­i­cism from St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves over the use of the TT dol­lar in re­gion­al trade, econ­o­mist Pro­fes­sor Roger Ho­sein has main­tained that his com­ments were un­der­stand­able but un­for­tu­nate.

Last month, at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the 77th Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS) Meet­ing, new­ly ap­point­ed OECS chair­man Dr Gon­salves con­demned T&T’s fail­ure to set­tle a “miser­ly” US$4 mil­lion debt owed to his coun­try for agri­cul­tur­al goods.

Gon­salves said the pro­pos­al he got from Port-of-Spain is that the re­ceiv­able should be paid in TTD—cur­ren­cy he says has no val­ue out­side of T&T.