T&T busi­ness­es say they are be­ing squeezed on all fronts—soar­ing crime-re­lat­ed costs, a stub­born for­eign ex­change crunch and ris­ing eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty.

Yet the gov­ern­ment’s $2.92 bil­lion mid-year bud­get in­jec­tion has of­fered lit­tle com­fort.

On Tues­day, the Busi­ness Guardian so­licit­ed the views of eight busi­nes­sown­ers from El Do­ra­do to Aranguez on the state of their busi­ness­es against the back­ground of the Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view. Most of those in­ter­viewed said the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion’s fis­cal poli­cies said the mea­sures risk push­ing al­ready vul­ner­a­ble firms clos­er to col­lapse, ar­gu­ing the re­view de­liv­ers lit­tle tan­gi­ble re­lief.