Industrial Policy Options - The Future

• Author: Wendell Mottley
• Profession: New York-based Investment Banker having previously served as executive director of the company which eventually became the pivot of Trinidad and Tobago s natural gas-led industrialization and as Minister of Finance, credited with playing a decisive role in setting Trinidad and Tobago on a sustained path of growth from 1994 onwards
• Pages: 187-205

187

INDUSTRIAL POLICY OPTIONS

INDUSTRIAL POLICY

OPTIONS – THE FUTURE

Chapters One through Three traced the historical evolution of

the practice of industrial policy in Trinidad and Tobago. At decisive

moments, there has been a ferment of ideas and debate out of which

has usually emerged a vision statement expounding the proposed

trajectory of industrial development. As an example, at an earlier

period that vision was encapsulated in the strategy, ‘Industrialization

by Import Substitution’. More recently the strategy may be describe

as, ‘Monetize the flared or stranded gas resource’. Thereafter

followed years of experimentation, learning and pragmatic

accommodation.

Industrial policy may again be at one of those decisive moments.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning has stated his aspiration that

Trinidad and Tobago achieve developed-country status by 2020. He

then encouraged debate by mandating a large group of experts to

operationalize that aspiration in a visioning exercise which he

labelled ‘Vision 2020’. Many of the cross-cutting issues were dealt

with in the experts’ report: ‘Vision 2020’. Even though the report

has been published, many of the issues regarding future industrial

policy have not yet been settled. A clear vision is yet to emerge.

In the meantime, the government has been proceeding with its

plans to broaden the industrial platform. It has set its sights on:

1. more ammonia and methanol, but linked to downstream

products therefrom;

2. more sponge iron; iron & steel castings; flat and sheet steel

production and downstream from there;

3 aluminum ingot; aluminum shapes and downstream there

from, including motorcar wheels;

4. ethylene / propylene / polypropylene and downstream from

there;

5. more LNG;

Chapter Ten

188

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO INDUSTRIAL POLICY 1959–2008

6. information technology (IT). Financial services and light

manufacturing. These are non-energy components of

government strategy with which I propose to deal in greater

detail later in this chapter.

The government is again counting on realizing substantial

investments downstream of the expanded platform. To realize

investment in the production of the first three platforms, the

government has stated its intention to:

i. provide seed equity in minority holdings with the private

sector;

ii. provide subsidized location infrastructure such as deep-water

ports in tandem with serviced industrial estates; the

government is presently building new heavy industrial estates

in South Trinidad patterned on the original successful Point

Lisas estate and a high tech light industrial park at Tamana.

(See Figures 2.1 and 10.1);

iii. subsidize critical inputs, such as gas/electricity in the case of

aluminum and steel, and ethane in the case of ethylene.

For the IT platform, the government is liberalizing the telephone

sector in expectation of cheaper communication costs. Two

companies, DIGICE L and LAQTEL have been granted licences.

The new UTT with its main campus located at Wallerfield has been

established. It is proposed that there should be a high IT component

at the university, around which, in cluster development, a number

of IT-intensive businesses are expected to be generated with an

employment goal of 50,000 persons. In this respect, the government

is hoping to create a miniature model of India’s IT success. A state

corporation, eTeck has been mandated to execute the strategy. To

this end, eTeck has established new industrial parks in the following

locations: Debe, Dow Village, Endeavour, Factory Road, Frederick

Settlement, Point Fortin, Preysal, and Reform (see Figure 10.1).