Raphael John-Lall
Economist Dr Vanus James believes that T&T must invest in Research and Development (R&D) at its tertiary education institutions if the country is to develop an economy with cutting edge capabilities.
He gave the view that the possibilities and comparative advantage that T&T has is not in the manufacturing of airplanes and similar specialised industries but the country can develop the education services sector.
“The best examples of that are Cambridge, Oxford and so on. The first thing a country has to do is to invest to build comparative advantage but this is not natural comparative advantage. You have some natural sectors like oil and gas but when you are talking about other activities, you have to invest to build. The investments do not have to be by locals or for locals. So, you have to set out a deliberate investment programme to bring collaborative elements. You put up your share of the money. It is something St. George’s University tried to do and is trying to do. We have to do it with industrial parks but manufacturing is not the space where we will build technical capabilities to do high quality production any time soon.”
James spoke at a webinar entitled “Tobago’s Labor Market Realities and Forex Earning Potential” hosted by the Trade and Economics Department of the University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine.
He used the examples of universities in North America and Europe which invest in R&D that has led to developing cutting-edge capabilities in different sectors.
“What they have done in St. Augustine is the traditional method of a teaching university, but suppose you put those resources into building research capability. I spent six months at the University of Manchester on a sabbatical and I can tell you that what they were doing is that they were saying that they would go after 20 Nobel prize winners from around the world to bring them into the University of Manchester to make them the best university in Britain. T&T can have the same kind of perspective. We are going after the best 10 professors in field ‘A’ around the world and we are putting up US$50 million to bring them to work in our space and build capacity. The gain we are making is the capacity to produce products that could then attract other people to come in an exploit the innovations that you create,” he said.
James also said development is a long-term process.
“You are likely to make mistakes all the time and overcome the doubt that you can’t get development by tomorrow morning and therefore don’t bother to do it which is the attitude we have been having throughout my lifetime. Ever since independence, we just think if you can’t make the money next week, it looks hard, don’t bother. But if you set up a process that is fully information driven, knowledge-creation driven, as the civilization part of our being is, then what you’re going to get is a systematic process of decision making put in place.”
Economist Dr Anthony Gonzales who took part in the question-and-answer segment said the St. George’s University in Grenada has done a good job in bringing in foreigners to study there but added that he doubts with the current model, T&T’s tertiary institutions can invest in R&D (research and development) that can develop products and services that can be exported.
“You can do that in the United States where there is a sophisticated basic research programme where lots of money is spent and there is a lot of experimentation and exploration and it is type of a hit-and-miss. R&D is based on probability, you may only get about 20 to 30 per cent success. I am not seeing where you can go very far beyond what is happening in Grenada and I think that there is a school in Dominica as well.”
Fishing industry
Associate Professor of the University of Trinidad and Tobago’s Centre for Maritime and Ocean Studies, Dr Arthur Potts who also spoke during the webinar said despite potential as an industry, T&T still does not produce enough fish for local consumption.
“We rely on imported fish in T&T for our fish consumption. We normally don’t produce enough fish to satisfy our country. When you see that we eat sardines and saltfish and pink salmon, these are all imported. We don’t do too much in terms of aquaculture, our aquaculture is generally low. We don’t do much more than twenty something metric tonnes. Also, the same thing with the capture fisheries in general, we don’t catch much fish in T&T.”
Despite challenges, he remains optimistic that the development of a fishing industry in Tobago can compliment the traditional energy sector and the tourism sector.
He added that the fishing industry can also employ more people and provide incomes as an alternative to the CEPEP and URP work programmes in Tobago.
“We will recognise that notwithstanding the fact that oil and gas sector is the major thing in the country, in Tobago in addition to tourism, this fishing industry does have a place. There are 684 vessels registered in Tobago…these pirogues are mainly the fiberglass type. Of course, oil and gas in T&T is a big thing, only 15 per cent of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could be considered and from anything else, where agriculture falls, only 0.1 per cent of that GDP is fisheries. We import much more fish than we export, so there is room for improvement in what can be done in fisheries. Tobago is a tourism-based economy but fishing plays a large role on that island with 48 per cent of Tobagonians claining to be fisherfolk.”
He also said fish consumption has increased and up to 180 million metric tonnes are produced annually globally and measured fish production and consumption in the Caricom region.
“We are talking Caricom, we don’t even produce a million metric tonnes of fish. We literally produce just a few tonnes of fish, not more than a 180 metric tonnes. When you talk about globally, we are very miniscule. We have a consumption of 10 to 35 kilogrammes per capita in Caricom. We have about 64,000 working in the sector and 180,000 indirectly. About US$291 million is made annually.”
