Finance Minister Larry Howai said T&T's economy performed better in the past nine months than state and international credit rating agencies expected due to upward fluctuations in energy prices.
"For the first nine month of this year, from October to June, we averaged a lot better than we expected in terms of the price of oil and gas.
"In the case of oil, we averaged about US $59-$64 which was below the US $80 price that we had originally expected, but above the US $45 price that we had subsequently projected for the end of this year.
"The average came in a little bit better than we had originally forecast," he said.
"That helped us because you would be probably aware that at the end of the first six months, we actually had a balanced fiscal position.
"And I have heard it said incorrectly that we showed that balanced fiscal position because we got $4 billion as a part settlement on the Clico arrangement.
"In fact, that $4 billion was not brought to book at the end of June. It was credited to a suspense account (and) $700 million of it was taken back out and given to British American to settle their outstanding (debts) to investor.
"Those funds were not brought into the revenue account for the first six month of this year. Actually, we have been performing somewhat better than we had originally expected."
Howai, who spoke at the launch of the Oxford Business Group's economic report on T&T at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre on Thursday, said officials from the rating agency Standard and Poor's had expressed surprise at "the out-turn that we showed for the first six months of this year."
"From the first of October coming forward, the price of oil has been falling on a consistent basis, so they recognised the fact that we had already started to take certain kinds of pre-emptive measures which have allowed us to maintain a relatively strong position from a fiscal point of view for the first nine months of this year," he said.