On target, Mr Hosang

MR ANTHONY HOSANG was right on target when he was asked to speak on behalf of the private sector at the breakfast in honour of visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the Hilton on Saturday. The essential point which the TTMA president made was in his appeal to both President Chavez and Prime Minister Patrick Manning “to ensure that the revenues derived from oil and gas are used to support and develop the social and productive levels of our respective countries, so that all our citizens will prosper.” Expanding on the point, he added: “Oil and gas provide the revenue. But it has been proven that it is the non-oil manufacturing sector that provides the sustainable productive employment so desperately needed by our citizens.”

Mr Hosang’s appeal is based on a realistic appreciation of the nature of the economies of TT and Venezuela, indeed of all developing oil-producing countries. There are variations on the theme, of course, but the basic fact is that while the energy sector provides the major source of revenue for these countries, it remains, by its very nature, a relatively small employer of labour. This accounts fundamentally for the anomalous situation we see in some countries which may be considered “rich” by virtue of their natural resources and their income from the petrochemical sector yet bearing a serious unemployment problem with a large percentage of their populations living under the poverty line. It must also be noted that this sad scenario results, in many cases, not only from a failure to develop the non-petroleum sector but also from the ravages of endemic corruption, gross mismanagement and dictatorial control. Fortunately, Trinidad and Tobago has not gone that way, but our country still suffers, to a significant extent, from a lop-sided economy with an expanding energy sector dominating the scene.

The imperative for placing the economy on an even keel, better to serve the entire country in the long term, is found in the appeal which Mr Hosang made to the two leaders at the Hilton on Saturday. Revenues from oil and gas, he argued, “must be used aggressively to sustain and grow non-oil manufacturing sectors through strengthened regulatory institutions and infrastructure, so that our countries would be competitive in the FTAA.” Indeed, the competitive demand which a globalised marketplace, specifically the 2005 advent of Free Trade Area of the Americas, will impose upon us makes this appeal even more urgent. Our non-oil manufacturing sector, where the potential for job creation is the greatest, must be able to meet this foreign competition “mano a mano” so to speak, and this can only be done by establishing a facilitating environment and the required infrastructure. The Government may regard such social programmes as URP and CEPEP as one means of relieving the unemployment problem and sharing the country’s oil-and-gas income more equitably among the national population but, whatever benefits these programmes provide, they are not truly productive and not an economically sensible way to solve the problem of development, of long term growth and job creation.

Here again, Mr Hosang makes a relevant point when he expresses the hope that the visit of the Venezuelan President would lay the foundation for further development of trade relations between our two countries, “remembering always that the success or failure of trade determines our future as nations and as a region.” The bottom line is that nations develop and prosper through their productive capacity, they earn wealth and employ their people on a stable and viable basis by producing and trading and, in a globalised marketplace, we must use our assets to the best advantage.