The Beginnings of National Industrial Policy in Trinidad and Tobago

• 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: 9-14

9

THE BEGINNINGS OF NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL POLICY

A nationalist government drawn from the political party, the

People’s National Movement (PNM) was elected to power in

Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) in 1956.1 The main goals of this

government were political independence from Britain and economic

development through industrialization. This was a spring season of

hope and great expectations in Trinidad and Tobago. At age 15, I

remember my father taking me to political meetings in Woodford

Square to hear the PNM’s political leader, Dr Eric Williams speak.

Dr Williams was a brilliant scholar with the charismatic professor’s

ability to both teach and motivate. When I heard him describe my

country’s destiny as an independent nation, I became a fervent young

patriot with a determination to study economics, so that I could be

a part of Williams’ prescriptions for industrial nation building, which

promised to be such an exciting part of our future.

In common with many countries at that time, the Trinidad and

Tobago government, under Williams, believed in the superior efficacy

of indicative economic planning. Three five-year development plans

were drawn up and implemented during the period 1958–73.

Industrialization was an important economic goal in these plans

which the nationalist government believed would give economic

expression to political independence.

The noted West Indian economist and Nobel Laureate, Sir

William Arthur Lewis in his landmark publication, The

Industrialization of the British West Indies (1950), had stressed the

importance of striking a balance between promoting agriculture and

industrialization in furtherance of development. Nevertheless it

would be true to say that in the 1950s, agricultural pursuits awakened

hurtful colonial memories; whereas industry, the forbidden fruit in

THE BEGINNINGS OF NATIONAL

INDUSTRIAL POLICY IN TRINIDAD

AND TOBAGO

Chapter One