The T&T econ­o­my is turn­ing around the cor­ner and growth is ex­pect­ed in 2012, stat­ed the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) in its lat­est re­port. Com­mer­cial bank cred­it, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the busi­ness sec­tor, has ex­pand­ed steadi­ly since mid-2011, for the first time since ear­ly 2010, and re­tail sales in­creased by 6.4 per cent up to the third quar­ter of 2011.

The March 15, 2012, re­port said T&T's re­cov­ery comes af­ter an ex­tend­ed slow­down last­ing three years, in which "am­ple buffers have pro­vid­ed room for ma­neu­ver," ac­com­mo­dat­ing an ex­pan­sion­ary fis­cal stance in 2010/2011, and re­sources to deal with the col­lapse of "a sys­temic in­sur­ance com­pa­ny," which it iden­ti­fied as Cli­co.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ferred to the IMF re­port dur­ing her ad­dress at the April 2 cer­e­mo­ny launch­ing the coun­try's cel­e­bra­tions to mark our 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence. The re­port was re­leased on­ly days be­fore.

Among the re­port's high­lights were:

• weak­er than an­tic­i­pat­ed en­er­gy sec­tor ac­tiv­i­ty, which con­tributed to a de­cline in 2011

• the cen­tral gov­ern­ment's fi­nances were "near­ly bal­anced" in fis­cal 2010/2011

• mon­e­tary pol­i­cy re­mained "ac­com­moda­tive in the face of sub­dued in­fla­tion"

• strain had emerged in the fi­nan­cial sys­tem "as a con­se­quence of the pro­longed slow­down and the col­lapse of the CL Fi­nan­cial Group and its in­sur­ance sub­sidiary Cli­co." But progress was made in com­pen­sat­ing Cli­co claimants al­though on-go­ing le­gal is­sues could lead to fur­ther de­lays.

The coun­try's ex­ter­nal ac­counts re­bound­ed in 2010, the eco­nom­ic out­look im­proved in the short-term, but there re­mained "sig­nif­i­cant down­side risks." De­tails of the re­port were re­leased yes­ter­day by Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices Ltd.

Re­gard­ing the re­bound­ing of the coun­try's ex­ter­nal ac­counts, the re­port said cur­rent ac­count sur­plus in­creased to 20 per cent of gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP) in 2010, and was es­ti­mat­ed to be 21 per cent in 2011, up from eight per cent in 2009. This would have stemmed main­ly from the im­prove­ment in en­er­gy prices and a re­cov­ery in non-en­er­gy ex­ports.

"Gross of­fi­cial re­serves grew to US$9.8 bil­lion. This rep­re­sents 13 months of im­port cov­er, at the end of 2011, in­creas­ing from US$9.1 bil­lion at the end of 2010. "Sur­vey­ing the out­look in the short-term, the re­port said re­al eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to in­crease by 1.7 per cent in 2012, "as the en­er­gy sec­tor re­sumes nor­mal op­er­a­tions lat­er in the year, and the non-en­er­gy sec­tor picks up mo­men­tum with the ac­cel­er­a­tion of pub­lic in­vest­ment and the re­struc­tur­ing of Cli­co li­a­bil­i­ties.

"In­fla­tion is ex­pect­ed to re­main mod­er­ate. Medi­um-term growth is ex­pect­ed to rise to 2.5 per cent. This was de­scribed as hav­ing been "sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than in the years pre­ced­ing the cri­sis, in part due to the weak out­look for the en­er­gy sec­tor." Fur­ther to this, the re­port said the non-en­er­gy growth is ex­pect­ed to reach its po­ten­tial of 3.5 per cent in 2012.

The lat­est IMF re­port there­fore rep­re­sents ma­jor pos­i­tive news for Trinidad and To­ba­go and was high­ly en­cour­ag­ing to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an, who was en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly con­grat­u­lat­ed by his col­leagues dur­ing the last IMF gen­er­al meet­ing in Mon­te­v­ideo, Uruguay last month.