By SASHA HARRINANAN Thursday, June 28 2012

This according to Republic Bank’s senior economist Ronald Ramkissoon, who was speaking to reporters yesterday during a break at this year’s Excellence in Business seminar at the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain.

“Notwithstanding the challenges he would have from the various ministries, I expect Minister Howai to stand his ground (on) proper economic management in the interest of growth of the economy and good economic management,” Ramkissoon said.



These policies, Ramkissoon said, should include an increased focus on projects that would boost economic activity rather than allocating much of the national revenue to recurring debt, such as loan payments.



This would, he argued, encourage local businesses to invest in the economy once again, thus increasing employment levels and revenue generation.



“In the short-term, if the Government gets capital expenditure projects going this will lead to, as we say in economics, the ‘crowd-in’ of private sector business. This happens all over the world and therefore, if we want to stand a good chance of having growth this year, we must work on getting these projects underway,” Ramkissoon advised.



In terms of the energy sector, which remains the main driver of the national economy, Ramkissoon said Government needs to do more to access our more difficult-to-reach oil and gas reserves.



“There are positive initiatives in energy but I think we have to pay even greater attention to the management of our energy resources...I am concerned that we are not doing enough to bring existing fields onboard, in respect of what Petrotrin is doing at (its offshore oil company) Trinmar. We have known sources of oil (so) we need to put in place the investments that would bring these fields back up to production,” Ramkissoon stated.