Rapheal John-Lall

De­spite T&T's small size, the coun­try must con­tin­ue ex­plor­ing and en­ter­ing for­eign mar­kets to build the econ­o­my, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said yes­ter­day.

"We as a small coun­try can grow from a parochial lo­ca­tion. That is why when Carib Glass­works talks about en­ter­ing for­eign mar­kets, we should feel strong and con­fi­dent. As one co­me­di­an said how much ba­nanas could you eat, how much cur­ry can you use. Even if we can find our­selves in the Cari­com re­gion we would find that very soon that mar­ket can­not sus­tain our as­pi­ra­tions and we have to look out­side," he said in an ad­dress at the launch Carib Glass­works Lim­it­ed's new $200 mil­lion.

Dr Row­ley said he re­cent­ly met with the coun­try's top busi­ness lead­ers and asked them how Gov­ern­ment can make the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment more ef­fi­cient. He added that Gov­ern­ment can­not run the coun­try on its own and needs the help of the pri­vate sec­tor which has had decades of de­vel­op­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, build­ing a fi­nan­cial base and find­ing new mar­kets.He said an over re­liance by or­di­nary cit­i­zens and the pri­vate sec­tor's on Gov­ern­ment is a recipe for fail­ure.

Dr Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment will soon in­vite pro­pos­als from the pri­vate sec­tor for deal­ing with waste man­age­ment, in­clud­ing the Beetham Dump, re­cy­cling of waste and po­ten­tial­ly de­vel­op­ing pow­er from waste.

"The land­fills are over­crowd­ed and are now threat­en­ing the en­vi­ron­ment," he said.

Nor­man Sab­ga, chair­man of the Ansa McAL Group, said the $200 mil­lion in­vest­ment is aimed at keep­ing Carib Glass­works com­pet­i­tive in a world where large multi­na­tion­als are in­creas­ing­ly dom­i­nat­ing the glass man­u­fac­tur­ing mar­ket.

"Carib Glass­works re­mains one of the small hand­ful of in­de­pen­dent glass man­u­fac­tur­ers. This fol­lows the clos­ing of plants in Ja­maica, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Puer­to Ri­co and Pana­ma. Our com­pe­ti­tion is now from very large, well cap­i­tal­ized, multi­na­tion­als," he said.

Sab­ga re­ferred to Fe­lipe Calderon, for­mer Pres­i­dent of Mex­i­co who was re­cent­ly in T&T and said that Gov­ern­ment must be the biggest al­ly of the pri­vate sec­tor. "The Ansa McAL Group is do­ing every­thing in its pow­er to as­sist in the re­build­ing of the econ­o­my. Giv­en the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate pri­vate sec­tor busi­ness­es should be seen as col­lab­o­ra­tors with Gov­ern­ment agen­cies as we all work to­wards pros­per­i­ty," he said.