Ivan’s backlash

Although hurricane Ivan, which did massive damage to Jamaica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Cayman Islands, did relatively little physical damage to Trinidad and Tobago, nonetheless in hurting agriculture and industry up the islands it is expected to impact adversely on Trinidad and Tobago’s export market. Trinidad and Tobago which has experienced a decade of continuous economic growth, and with this year’s level at the summit, mainly as a result of increased production of crude; record international prices for oil and higher revenues from exports of liquefied natural gas, methanol and other energy based products, is, because of the backlash from Ivan, about to be hit in its soft underbelly - agricultural products and small manufactures.

CARICOM is this country’s second largest export market after the United States of America, and the anticipated sharp fall off in some States in their agricultural production and small manufactures capacity following on the battering by Ivan will result, increasingly, in an inability to pay for imports. This will produce a domino effect. The CARICOM countries will not be able to import anywhere near the level of goods from Trinidad and Tobago as they had been able to up to less than, say, a fortnight ago. One short to medium term measure may be the extending of lines of credit to Ivan affected CARICOM States backed by perhaps the Caribbean Develop-ment Bank headquartered in Barbados.

This will help farmers and small manufacturers in the hurricane hit regional countries to restart their farms and businesses, provide needed employment to the people and revenue, through corporation and personal income taxes and import duties, to the various Governments and help to turn money around within their respective economies. This, in turn, will hasten a return to exports as well as a situation in which Trinidad and Tobago goods and services can be imported in relative quantities. Unless the hurricane-hit CARICOM countries can return as quickly as possible to a production mode, Trinidad and Tobago produced goods, already under threat by World Trade Organisation rules and regulations and by restrictions imposed by the United States on our agricultural exports, may experience a sharp fall off in regional trade. This will be followed by a drop in domestic employment.  

Meanwhile, any move by Grenadians to seek refugee status here, or for that matter in any other CARICOM Member State, should be discouraged as this would lead to a loss to Grenada of valuable human resource capital needed greatly at this time. The remaining in Grenada of its human resource capital, whether that of carpenters, masons, painters, contractors, professionals, dockworkers, teachers, nurses, engineers, doctors and what have you is crucial to the rebuilding of that country. And while, it may be beneficial in the short term to Trinidad and Tobago and some of the other CARICOM States it will slow down if not stunt the redevelopment of Grenada and lead to an explosion of social problems which, ultimately, may spill over to this country. It will prove better for Trinidad and Tobago to provide Grenada with a grant-in-aid along with technical assistance and a long term development loan rather than have to face another backlash, this time social, from hurricane Ivan.