Applause and cake for PM in San Fernando

PRIME MINISTER Patrick Manning was greeted with a thunderous applause from scores of supporters who gathered at his San Fernando East Constituency Office on Monday night for a meeting. Manning recently returned from Cuba where doctors implanted a pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat. In a short address at the meeting, his first public appearance in his constituency since his return, Manning said the country’s energy sector was moving so fast that the Union Industrial Estate in La Brea was full to capacity and efforts are being made by the National Gas Company and its subsidiary, the National Energy Corporation, to search from Point Lisas to Icacos for land for construction of the Industrial Park.

“We now see the construction of the Industrial Park, not so much as economic development , but as social development,” the Prime Minister said. Manning said 1985 is currently used as the base year to calculate Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, the economy of Trinidad has changed considerably and there are several new industries that are not taken into account in this calculation of the GDP. As a result, the Government is going to re-base its GDP using the year 2000.

According to Manning, last year the GDP calculations with the base year 1985 caused the country’s economy to grow at a rate of 13.2 percent, one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere. This year, with the GDP calculations using 2000 as the base year, it is expected that the percentage growth of the economy will be higher. Manning confirmed that this year’s Budget would be presented in early October and the fiscal package is expected to amount to $22 billion. During the meeting, constituents surprised Manning with a cake and an impromptu but belated celebration of his birthday.