Trinidad and Tobago may not be about to surrender its credentials as the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) member country with the most prominent petro-imprint on its economy, up to this time, though, that said, its ambition to ‘shine’ in the regional export sector, outside of oil and gas would appear to be altogether undiminished.
Minister of Trade and Industry, Paula Gopie-Scoon, when she addressed the recent Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA) President’s Dinner and Award Ceremony at the Hyatt in Port of Spain, paid particular attention to the incrementally advanced credentials of the non-oil sector in the country’s overall economy over the decades. She disclosed that this year, the non-energy sector accounted for $12.6 billion of the $15.7 billion in exports in 2023. The T&T Cabinet Minister disclosed that the diversification of the country’s economy had occurred on a “phased basis” and that it was the “third phase… around the early 80s,” that had led the country to the “huge diversification in the non-energy side” which she said was influenced by “policies that the Government and the Central Bank took at that time,” which, she asserted, was attended by “great focus on supporting the private sector as an engine of growth.”
