NADALEEN SINGH

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning says Gov­ern­ment will be turn­ing to ship build­ing and ma­rine re­pairs, as his ad­min­is­tra­tion ex­pands its pol­i­cy of eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in­to the 2010 fis­cal year. He said apart from the pro­pos­al for the de­vel­op­ment of the ma­rine in­dus­try, the Gov­ern­ment has re­ceived oth­er pro­pos­als from the pri­vate sec­tor for the con­struc­tion of a ma­jor dry dock in Ch­aguara­mas. He said ship build­ing and re­pairs has tremen­dous po­ten­tial for di­ver­si­fy­ing the econ­o­my out of the en­er­gy sec­tor. "The Gov­ern­ment is al­so look­ing at the po­ten­tial of this sec­tor to have an im­pact on the en­er­gy sec­tor." He not­ed that the fast grow­ing ma­rine seg­ment of the oil and gas ex­plo­ration in­dus­try, has the ca­pac­i­ty to stim­u­late the de­vel­op­ment of ship build­ing and ship re­pair fa­cil­i­ties.

"At this time we have spent quite a lot of mon­ey to buy the ma­rine as­sets, but they have to be ser­viced and main­tained and that re­al­ly is the gen­e­sis of all of this," Man­ning told his guests at the an­nu­al Re­pub­lic Day Din­ner on Sat­ur­day evening. Man­ning said he was con­fi­dent that di­ver­si­fy­ing in­to ship build­ing and re­pair would be ben­e­fi­cial to the econ­o­my. "It rep­re­sents a new di­rec­tion that is labour in­ten­sive and which has the po­ten­tial of cre­at­ing a new in­dus­try that can make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in our coun­try. It will al­so re­duce our de­pen­dence on the en­er­gy sec­tor," he added. Re­gard­ing ex­plo­ration Man­ning said moves are be­ing made to go in­to a new province for oil and gas ex­plo­ration. He said the province is in deep wa­ters off the east coast of T&T with con­sid­er­able depths, there­fore mak­ing the cost of ex­plo­ration very high.

"We are now in dis­cus­sions with the re­spec­tive oil com­pa­nies that are like­ly to be in­ter­est­ed or have the ca­pac­i­ty to do the re­quired ex­plo­ration in provinces that are cap­i­tal ex­pen­sive as these that will take bil­lions of dol­lars to de­vel­op and we are well on our way in that ex­er­cise," Man­ning said. He said the Gov­ern­ment has the ex­per­tise and the con­fi­dence that is re­quired to nav­i­gate T&T through the murky and treach­er­ous eco­nom­ic wa­ters ahead. Point­ing to the re­cent dis­clo­sure of the Stan­dard and Poors' coun­try re­port and the rat­ing agency's de­ci­sion to re­move T&T from a neg­a­tive watch list, Man­ning said it is proof of prop­er man­age­ment of this coun­try's econ­o­my.