Hilton, CAL, TSTT, NGC, PTSC, VM­COTT, etc. What do they have in com­mon? First­ly, they are all to­tal­ly or par­tial­ly, com­mer­cial state en­ti­ties, in one form or the oth­er. Sec­ond­ly, their vi­a­bil­i­ty al­ways comes to the fore in times of tight fis­cal rev­enues, like now, be­cause of the high cost of fund­ing these en­ter­pris­es by the Trea­sury and there­fore by tax­pay­ers. Third­ly, and whether we rec­og­nize it or not, they all re­late to the is­sue of the role of the state in eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

I raise this is­sue of the role of the state be­cause I was a mem­ber of the State En­ter­prise Re­view Com­mit­tee which was ap­point­ed to ex­am­ine the role of state-owned en­ter­pris­es in 2016 and I recog­nise that a new ad­min­is­tra­tion un­sur­pris­ing­ly is grap­pling with some of the same is­sues all over again.

Frus­trat­ing­ly, from some of the state­ments be­ing made, I fear that some of the same mis­takes are go­ing to be made and it is tax­pay­ers that are go­ing to bear the brunt of these mis­takes.

The State and state en­ter­pris­es can play a crit­i­cal role in na­tion­al eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, whether or not this is rec­og­nized by pol­i­cy mak­ers. They can even play a piv­otal role in the more gen­er­al frame­work of in­dus­tri­al pol­i­cy and con­se­quent­ly can help or hin­der na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment

It is in this con­text that I draw at­ten­tion of pol­i­cy mak­ers to the re­lease of a hot-off-the-press World Bank Group Pol­i­cy Re­port, April 2026 which is ti­tled “In­dus­tri­al Pol­i­cy for De­vel­op­ment” by Fer­nan­des and Reed. The Re­port is easy to read and sim­pli­fies a lot of jar­gon.

Im­por­tant­ly for coun­tries like us “in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion” does not on­ly re­fer to man­u­fac­tur­ing but in­cludes sev­er­al oth­er sec­tors in­clud­ing tourism. The re­port in­cludes chap­ters on, how to do in­dus­tri­al­iza­tion and which sec­tors to tar­get. Rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple to read and prag­mat­ic are use­ful qual­i­ties of the Re­port. This should be good for our busy pol­i­cy mak­ers.

The re­port al­so comes at a pro­pi­tious time be­cause I read that the World Bank is to es­tab­lish an of­fice in this coun­try some­time soon.

Again, I call for the es­tab­lish­ment of an ap­pro­pri­ate­ly staffed Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment Ad­vi­so­ry Board to de­vel­op a strate­gic plan for this coun­try. I feel cer­tain that the World Bank would be will­ing to help with this ex­er­cise.

Fi­nal­ly, I rec­om­mend that this ex­er­cise be quick­ly ini­ti­at­ed be­cause if the boom in our oil and gas sec­tors take off, as many have pre­dict­ed, that is like­ly to mean the end of any strate­gic plan, un­til the next bust comes along!

Econ­o­mist Ronald Ramkissoon, PhD