Finance Minister Colm Imbert says despite the economic hardships brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, T&T’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased in the third quarter of 2021.
Speaking during a People’s National Movement (PNM) meeting at the Diego Martin South Community Centre on Tuesday night, he said the GDP increased by about $5 billion in the third quarter of 2021.
He said when he wrote the 2022 budget last year, the Central Statistical Office was not able to provide up-to-date information on the country’s economic performance.
But Imbert said the third-quarter figures were updated several days ago.
“What I am seeing from these figures is that there was a tremendous recovery in the Trinidad and Tobago economy in the third quarter of 2021. And we haven’t got December 2021 figures yet and I dare say that the production in the Trinidad and Tobago economy was at least equal to what occurred in the third quarter in the fourth quarter,” Imbert said.
He credited the Government’s social and business support programmes during the height of the pandemic for this growth, saying they were able to keep the different sectors afloat. The Finance Minister said he wanted to reveal the data to dispel the “misinformation” that was in the public domain.
“I looked at all the sectors, mining and quarrying, manufacturing, food, beverages, textiles, petroleum and chemical products, construction, trade and repairs, transport, financial services, crude oil, condensate, natural gas, petroleum support services, manufacture of petrochemicals, every single sector I’ve just called out there, everyone grew in 2021,” Imbert said.
He said this growth in the GDP will reflect positively on T&T when international rating agencies look at the country’s finances.
And because the Government used a “conservative” estimate as the base for the 2022 budget, Imbert said he can now revise the 2021 GDP – from $150 billion to $170 billion.
“And because we’re being conservative and using a low figure for GDP of $150 billion, we had stated that our debt-to-GDP last year was about 85 per cent. And everybody, all the experts, start to bawl, ‘Oh, unsustainable, Trinidad will collapse.’ Well with these figures now, our debt to GDP ratio is going to drop below 80 it might go to 75 per cent,” he said.
He said there was ‘tremendous’ growth in the various sectors he had identified earlier, including an almost 100 per cent growth in the construction industry.
Imbert said these bits of good news do not mean the country does not have to repay its debts.
He said the increases in the oil price can also present an issue that the Government will need to mull over.
Imbert said at an oil price of $100 a barrel, the Government would have to spend $2.4 billion to subsidise fuel.
“There’s a direct relationship between the price of oil and the price of gas, whether oil is produced here or whether it is imported or gasoline is imported, the price of gasoline remains the same, something called an ex-refinery price. And what this Government has been doing over the last six years, we have been subsidising the price of fuel but every time the oil price goes up, the price of fuel to Paria goes up and the subsidy that the Government has to pay goes up,” he said.
However, Imbert said the State would benefit from the Petroleum Subsidy Fund, which mandates oil companies to pay more taxes when prices increase on the global market.
“If we earn an additional $4 billion from better oil and gas prices in 2022, which is quite possible, I’ll be looking at the numbers. You might go to $2 billion or $3 billion, maybe $4 billion if things keep going. Would you think that we should take $2 billion out of that $4 billion and put it into subsidising fuel? I just posed that question for you. And it is something we as a government have to look at very, very carefully,” he said.
