PM:
Energy expansion needed
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
01 06 08
Trinidad and Tobago cannot reach developed country
status by 2020 if its energy sector-dependent economy
is not properly diversified, says Prime Minister
Patrick Manning.
"No aspect of the achievement of our overall
objective of becoming a developed country constitutes
a simple process. And, hardly is this anywhere
more evident that in respect of meeting the diversification
challenge," Manning said.
He spoke on the issue yesterday while delivering
the keynote address at the Sixth Annual Caribbean
MBA Conference held at the Hilton Trinidad hotel,
St Ann's.
As he did so, however, another
speaker at the conference, Neal & Massy Energy
Business Unit executive chairman Gervase Warner,
later said that
this country's leaders are not doing enough with
regard to economic diversification.
"If our business and government leaders really
wanted to make sure that we grow as citizens and
to ensure that while being served, people become
healthier, wiser, freer and more autonomous, and
more likely themselves to become servants, they
will go to greater lengths to diversify this economy," Warner
said.
The conference, which began on Wednesday and ends
on Monday, was organised by the Harvard Business
School's Caribbean Business Club and the Wharton
School of the University of Pennsylvania's Caribbean
Business Initiative Club.
Its theme is "Regional and Economic Diversification:
Expanding our share of the global economy".
Manning spoke to participants, who were mostly
students now pursuing their Master of Business
Administration (MBA) degrees at Harvard and Wharton,
and said that while this country is well on its
way towards economic diversification, it comes
with complexities and seeming paradoxes.
"Notwithstanding, for example, our commitment
to reducing our current level of dependence on
the energy sector, a considerable part of our economic
diversification effort is still to be financed
by this sector, especially over the short and medium
terms," Manning said.
"This in itself necessitates ongoing development
of our energy sector and most certainly, a matter
of diversification of the sector," he also
said.
Manning said to "relax" the pace of
development of the energy sector in this regard "would
be to stall or forestall the pace of economic growth" as
he declared this country is on the verge of a second
industrial boom in the development of non-oil manufactures.
Story
by
Juhel Browne from
Trinidad Express
Trinidad
Express
Saturday,
January 5th 2008
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