Impossible is nothing

Republic Bank economist Ronald Ramkissoon thinks Trinidad and Tobago’s “victory” over Sweden, is a sure sign that small countries like ours can give the global giants a run for their money.

He said there are lessons to be learnt from what he termed as our “victory” against the Swedes. TT actually drew that match 0-0 in its World Cup qualifying match in Nuremberg.

In an analysis of TT’s performance after the game, the economist took the view that size was not everything. (see table)

“From time to time economists and others have argued that size in and of itself is not the dominant constraint to socio-economic development. To be truthful some of us have argued as if it is,” he reasoned.

“I suggest that this is an opportune time to revisit the debate. I say this in light of the ‘victory’ of TT over Sweden. Specifically, my assumption is that if a small developing country can hold a large developed country to a draw in World Cup football then there might be some lessons to be learnt which might prove useful in the pursuit of developed country status.”

He added, “ Put another way, are there lessons from our recent sporting success that if applied to the economic sphere can see TT achieve the same goal?”

He then sought to compare TT and Sweden. The population of Trinidad and Tobago is less than 15 percent that of Sweden and our land area is just about one percent the size of that country, he said. Additionally, Sweden’s GDP is almost 28 times that of ours.

“It is now well accepted that critical dimensions to rapid development are the number of Internet users and school enrollment,” he said, noting that Sweden has over six times more Internet users than Trinidad and Tobago while the number of tertiary educated citizens is seven times greater in Sweden.

Based on these selected statistics (see table on page 3), “there is little doubt that we are small and sadly lagging in important respects. Importantly however, there are some things that we can do something about and some over which we have no control.”

The question, he said, is how was Trinidad and Tobago able to achieve a draw against Sweden? What accounted for our success? The economist then advanced four possible explanations :

(i) A burning desire on our part to do our best against staggering odds

(ii) Leadership

(iii)Technical skills, teamwork and strategy

(iv) A sense by the competition that we were so small and insignificant that they had nothing to worry about.

“The first three are aspects that we had control over,” he said in his analysis. “We had no control over the fourth but we can safely assume that it worked then and can work for us again in other spheres, at least in the initial stages. I am sure that there are more reasons which explain our success but over to those who are far more qualified.”

“Is there any relevance in these explanations in regard to driving our companies, schools, government departments and leaders to achieve world class results?” he said.

He thinks there is. “In the midst of our celebrations or after let us consider how we might best replicate the success of our Soca Warriors in making ourselves, our organisations and our country world class.”