DIX­IE-ANN DICK­SON

Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz says the Gov­ern­ment is ready and will­ing to in­vest in the an­i­ma­tion in­dus­try as it pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the na­tion­al econ­o­my. "As the min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try–and as part of the Gov­ern­ment's thrust in di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion–I am look­ing out­side of the box." Evolv­ing Tec­Knolo­gies and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (e-Teck), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the T&T Film Fes­ti­val, An­i­mae Caribe and Toon Boom, held a fo­rum last week high­light­ing the ben­e­fits of in­vest­ing in the an­i­ma­tion in­dus­try. The fo­rum, which took place at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) au­di­to­ri­um, Port-of-Spain, demon­strat­ed how coun­tries like Chi­na and In­dia had max­imised on the op­por­tu­ni­ty which has now evolved in­to a tril­lion-dol­lar in­dus­try.

"I nev­er thought I would be look­ing at a tril­lion-dol­lar in­dus­try when I heard about the an­i­ma­tion in­dus­try. When you hear an­i­ma­tion, you im­me­di­ate­ly think car­toons," Cadiz said. "But when I heard the amount of rev­enue this in­dus­try gen­er­ates, it piqued my in­ter­est." "So, if In­dia, which in­vest­ed in the an­i­ma­tion in­dus­try 10 years ago, could move from ze­ro to a $1 tril­lion, then for any in­vestor in Trinidad, it must say some­thing. "Even in oil and gas, we do not pro­duce that...if you look at the last eight years, this coun­try pro­duce some­thing like $300 bil­lion, which worked out to about US$50 bil­lion. This is the spend of State, while look­ing at one in­dus­try pro­duc­ing a tril­lion dol­lars in a space of ten years; this says some­thing." Cadiz said the Gov­ern­ment was will­ing to cre­ate the op­por­tu­ni­ty and act as a fa­cil­i­ta­tor for those who were will­ing to in­vest in the an­i­ma­tion in­dus­try.

He said the Gov­ern­ment has al­ready put a num­ber of mea­sures and mech­a­nisms in place for cit­i­zens and groups to open their own busi­ness­es. "The Gov­ern­ment is will­ing, but it is re­al­ly up to the cit­i­zens and pri­vate sec­tor to make it hap­pen," Cadiz said cit­i­zens could max­imise on this op­por­tu­ni­ty by util­is­ing the fi­nan­cial re­sources through in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing the Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (BDC), and that e-Teck would al­so be used as a fa­cil­i­ta­tor. Cadiz said the is­sue of tax in­cen­tives for in­vestors in this sec­tor would be ad­dressed. Joan Vo­ge­le­sang, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer and pres­i­dent of Toon Boom An­i­ma­tion, said an­i­ma­tion was a fledg­ing in­dus­try and called on the pri­vate sec­tor to in­vest.

She said it was not sim­ply about en­ter­tain­ment, but it has be­come a key com­po­nent in many oth­er in­dus­tries through the cre­ation of train­ing and stim­u­la­tion pro­grammes for ed­u­ca­tion, med­i­cine and busi­ness. Vo­ge­le­sang said T&T was poised to take full ad­van­tage of the glob­al need and de­mand for an­i­ma­tion, in par­tic­u­lar, In­dia, whose fo­cus is lo­cal con­tent. Vo­ge­le­sang said the In­di­an an­i­ma­tion in­dus­try was worth US$494 mil­lion in 2008, but glob­al­ly, it would grow to a size of US$100 bil­lion at an an­nu­al growth rate of ten per cent by 2012. She said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty needs to join in the prof­itable jour­ney as Trinidad has the re­sources. The Min­istry of Sci­ence and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion has a 15-week course in an­i­ma­tion while the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T has a diplo­ma pro­gramme, she said.