The following is the address delivered by Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning at the launch of the Trade and Investment Convention 2008 on April 30, 2008 at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya
1. Introduction
I welcome the opportunity to address you this morning at the formal opening of this annual Trade and Investment Convention, hosted by the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers Association. The Government, through the Ministry of Trade and Industry, is pleased to be one of the sponsors of this important event which plays its part in promoting the development of the economy of Trinidad and Tobago. Let me also extend a very warm welcome to all overseas visitors and exhibitors for this convention and wish you a most successful and pleasant stay in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
2. Our strong private sector
We must continue to recognise and applaud the contribution of private enterprise to the strength of the national economy. This sector has displayed the resilience and the creativity to sharpen the competitiveness required for viability in this era of globalisation. Though resistant at first in the early nineties, our business community eventually came to accept the international realities and rose so successfully to the challenge that today, our manufacturing sector for example, is the strongest in CARICOM and the wider Caribbean region.
3. Government’s facilitative role
The Government, through policy and incentives, has undoubtedly played a significant role in the strength of private enterprise in our country. During the period 1991-95, whilst we started to dismantle the protectionist barriers, with tariff reduction for example, we, among other measures, simultaneously reduced duties on the imports of manufacturing inputs and started the lowering of corporation tax which is now at 25% percent, the lowest in the history of Trinidad and Tobago for non-oil companies, a level attained during our last administration.
Indeed over the last six years, we made business conditions even better in a number of ways, including greater efficiency in regulatory agencies like the Customs and Excise Division; recapitalisation of the EXIM Bank to provide exporters with favourable credit terms and information on new market opportunities; establishment of new industrial estates; and the leasing of lands for the purpose of stimulating and facilitating new business activity. Also, through the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector, we have made broadband coverage more easily accessible to facilitate the deployment of information and communications technology in business operations including the growth of electronic commerce.
With this most facilitative environment and generous fiscal incentives, there has been tremendous growth in business activity in this country. The manufacturing sector, for example, expanded by over fifty percent over the last six years and created over 6,000 new jobs in Trinidad and Tobago. In fact I have just been told by the President of the Association that the manufacturing sector would have doubled in a seven year period. And you my friends deserve our heartiest congratulations.
4. The partnership
There has clearly emerged a most effective partnership between the Government and private enterprise in Trinidad and Tobago. This has redounded to the benefit of the entire society, with the non-energy sector contributing increasingly to national wealth, the generation of employment and the strengthening of the society in our country. In fact my dear friends, in the fourth quarter of 2007 unemployment hit the lowest figure ever in the history of Trinidad and Tobago at 4.5%. If there was any doubt; all doubt is now removed, we have indeed achieved full employment in this country. One of the more pleasing evolutionary attitudinal changes in our nation is the greater recognition, at all levels of the society, of the indispensable role that the business community continues to play in the development of all citizens in our country. Trinidad and Tobago has more of a business friendly environment than ever before and this is the direct product of the partnership between the Government and the private sector.
5.Facing present challenges
This partnership must continue if we are to meet the challenges ahead. A global economic slowdown looms which could affect the level of our exports, including to our two largest markets, the United States and CARICOM, with negative consequences for the domestic economy and society. Additionally, extraordinarily high energy costs continue to fuel inflation in most products and services; and are a significant contributor, along with higher demand and lower production, for the potentially destabilising rise in the cost of food. The partnership between the Government and the private sector must rise to the occasion if the nation is to surmount the challenges that are before us.
The government will continue to ensure the facilitative environment for business development through even more conducive industrial, trade and service policies. We will also continue to enlarge our markets through favourable trading arrangements for our exporters. In addition to existing trading opportunities with markets on both sides of the Atlantic, we have placed special emphasis on Latin America over the last few years and, along with our CARICOM partners, have already established free trade arrangements with the Dominican Republic and with Costa Rica. We are presently engaged in trade negotiations with the wider Central American region and will be also pursing arrangements with MERCOUSUR and with Cuba where we have already established a trade facilitation office. We are expanding market access all the time. Our private sector is already making very good use of existing opportunities and will undoubtedly, through continuously improving efficiencies, strengthen both product and output to take advantage of expanding horizons.
6.The need for innovation
But as a nation we must go further. In the light of the present international scenario, including the inevitability of reciprocity in emerging trading arrangements, now more than ever do we need the spirit of innovation and inventiveness to permeate our entrepreneurial thinking. This is the key to expansion, improved competitiveness and sustainable viability. We need to create more value-added, new and unique products utilising indigenous materials to a greater degree, in manufacturing, agro- industry, culture and entertainment, to name some of the sectors that readily come to mind. Therefore there must now be greater emphasis on research and development which need much more resources than are presently allocated at both the public and private levels. I give you the assurance that the government intends to tackle this matter in a meaningful way and I am sure that we could arrive at creative ways to encourage the private sector to place greater emphasis on this aspect of national development. We must all recognise that without invention and innovation there could be stagnation, which, if prolonged, leads to decline. There can be no standing still for either the individual, corporation or nation in this extremely competitive world in which we live.
7.The opportunity in the rising cost of food
The rising cost of food is a problem for everyone in our society. All must rise to the challenge. Consumers must exercise greater discipline and discretion than before, the business community must be careful not to be exploitative of national vulnerability in the face of this challenge, and the Government, in addition to sourcing cheaper imports, must, most importantly, ensure greater national food production and the modernisation of the agricultural sector in Trinidad and Tobago.
Though a cause for serious concern, it is also an opportunity for further development. Here too must the partnership come into effect. One of the missing ingredients in the development of agriculture in this country has been the absence of significant levels of private capital in the sector. This must change and we therefore welcome the decision by PCS Nitrogen to establish a large model green house farm for food production and the stimulation of agri-business in Trinidad and Tobago. This should serve as an inspiration for other business ventures in Agriculture in this country.
The opportunity is there. Shortages and high prices ought to make the food market an attractive one for investment. Indeed the present global situation presents an opportunity for the dismantling of protectionist barriers in developing countries against the importation of agricultural products from the developing world; a scenario which must be creatively seized by negotiators in the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations. In the light of the opportunities presented by the present problems pertaining to the price of food, my administration is already looking at additional and innovative ways by which we could encourage greater investment by the private sector in the agricultural development of this country.
8. Economic diversification
Agriculture is therefore an important aspect of the economic diversification to which we aspire. The government has already created seven thousand new farms from the lands of the former Caroni 1975 limited where food production has started; and we are in the process of establishing seventeen large farms, each of no less than one hundred acres, and in which we are inviting the participation of the private sector. Indeed, as part of our economic diversification, we have already pointed to the Food and Beverages and the Fish and Fish processing sectors as two of seven areas already targeted by the Government for development and new investment.
The other five areas are Printing and Packaging; Yachting; Merchant Marine; Music and Entertainment and the Film Industry. Special purpose companies, with strategic plans, have been created for the development of all these sectors, and these are now in operation in pursuit of the mandate given to them.
And there is so much more on the diversification master-plan. We are now going further downstream of natural gas to establish a plastics industry through complexes for the production of ethylene, polyethylene, propylene and polypropylene; and are also establishing facilities for the production of Melamine, Urea Ammonium Nitrate, a Malaeic Anhydride Processing Facility and an Acetic Acid plant, as well as plants for the production of aluminium and iron and steel. We have also developed the technology park at Wallerfield for the growth of the information industries in Trinidad and Tobago, as we implement our national ICT plan and provide ubiquitous Broadband coverage to achieve ‘on demand’ availability to our population at internationally competitive rates.
9. Emerging new possibilities
Ladies and Gentlemen all these new initiatives will generate a host of new manufacturing industries in so many indispensable products for modern living. The business community will have the busiest time of your lives. So be prepared. And for you to get a better picture of what is coming, let me point out the emerging possibilities in a little detail. For example:
• with the coming plastics industry, from polypropylene, we will manufacture carpets, brushes, rope , tape, film sheeting, containers, appliance parts, bottles and caps, cups and toys. From polyethylene we will manufacture containers, pipes, appliance parts, bottle crates, bags and bowls.
• the malaeic anhydride plant will stimulate manufacturing in fibre glass, automotive parts, building panels, foods and pharmaceuticals, personal care products, domestic products, water treatment chemicals, agricultural chemicals, detergents and pesticides.
• from melamine, the opportunities are for the manufacture of decorative laminates; tableware; surface coatings; wood adhesive; and resins.
• we will produce liquid and solid fertilizers from urea ammonium nitrate.
• from aluminium we will develop a wide variety of products from household goods to transportation materials; including rims, wire, cables, utensils, bottles, foil, tables, chairs, ladders, doors, and windows.
• from the iron and steel integrated complex, producing flat hot rolled coil as well as hot briquette iron and slabs, we will facilitate the production of galvanized materials, pipes, heat-resistant grids, tools, wrought and cast iron, valve bodies, skid & vessel platforms, razor wire, barb wire, guardrails, pressure vessels, storage tanks, bearings, braided steel ropes,stainless steel materials, roofing materials, wire rods, cable, nails, beams and coils and plates; and
• from the development of the information sector, we shall generate new industries like software development, software testing, computer and electronics manufacturing, radio frequency identification and medical transcription. We shall also position our country to be a destination for outsourcing activity like back office accounting and processing for credit cards and digital signatures.
10.Conclusion
Do you then see the industrial revolution that is coming to Trinidad and Tobago, Ladies and Gentlemen, the foundations of which are being laid at this very moment. I am sure you can now better understand how much greater will be the opportunity for your investment, creativity and entrepreneurial skills. And this vision, My Friends, stretches way into the future. Now then is the time to plan ahead, to see the future already taking shape on the horizon, a future of unprecedented business expansion, wealth creation, and employment generation, all strengthening the society of Trinidad and Tobago.
I congratulate the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers Association and all others involved in the realisation of this year’s Trade and Investment Convention. The event has been growing from strength to strength. I have no doubt that, with the industry and creativity of our local private sector, and the vision and plans of the Administration which I have the honour to lead, this convention, will grow into becoming one of the premier events of its kind in the wider hemisphere. It would then have proven, once again, that the partnership between the Government and Business has prevailed in the interest of the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen. Best wishes for a most successful convention. May Almighty God Bless you all.
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