KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is hop­ing for a smooth tran­si­tion of pow­er when En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Stu­art Young takes over from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on March 16.

Af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter gave his re­tire­ment date yes­ter­day, sev­er­al cham­bers thanked Dr Row­ley for his ser­vice and his re­la­tion­ship with the cham­bers over the years.

Speak­ing via tele­phone yes­ter­day, Greater San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness Cham­ber pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh said Young’s ex­pe­ri­ence as En­er­gy Min­is­ter will as­sist him in ne­go­ti­at­ing fu­ture agree­ments as prime min­is­ter when Row­ley de­parts.

Singh said, “The Prime Min­is­ter (Dr Row­ley) has worked well with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty over the years as prime min­is­ter. We ex­pect that that will con­tin­ue with the new prime min­is­ter in the per­son of Stu­art Young... Giv­en his ex­pe­ri­ence in the en­er­gy in­dus­try, we ex­pect that will au­gur well for him be­cause of the fact that the econ­o­my is fac­ing some re­al chal­lenges from an en­er­gy per­spec­tive with soft prices in the petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor and of course, we have our re­serves have been de­plet­ed some­what, so we need that lev­el of ex­pe­ri­ence. He would have been in sev­er­al dis­cus­sions and ne­go­ti­a­tions over the last few years, lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, with fi­nal­is­ing and ne­go­ti­at­ing dif­fer­ent agree­ments for the ben­e­fit of the T&T econ­o­my and we def­i­nite­ly ex­pect that that will as­sist him in al­so ne­go­ti­at­ing fu­ture agree­ments. We have the Drag­on Gas deal com­ing up, the Man­a­tee field, and these are show­ing strong prospects for de­vel­op­ment to pro­vide some tril­lion cu­bic feet of gas.”

Mean­while, Con­fed­er­a­tion of Busi­ness Cham­ber pres­i­dent Jai Lelad­hars­ingh said, “We look for­ward to a smooth process and a sta­ble en­vi­ron­ment so busi­ness could con­tin­ue to op­er­ate.”

Send­ing its best wish­es to Row­ley, the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T (AM­CHAM TT) and the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce said they re­main com­mit­ted to en­gag­ing with Gov­ern­ment.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, AM­CHAM TT said, “The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AM­CHAM T&T) ex­press­es its grat­i­tude to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for his ser­vice and lead­er­ship to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, fol­low­ing his an­nounce­ment of his res­ig­na­tion date. While we may have had dif­fer­ences in pol­i­cy per­spec­tives from time to time, and there is much work still to be done, AM­CHAM T&T recog­nis­es Dr Row­ley’s piv­otal role in nav­i­gat­ing the na­tion through sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges and achieve­ments. No­tably, he is the first Prime Min­is­ter in the na­tion’s his­to­ry to vol­un­tar­i­ly re­lin­quish of­fice, and we com­mend his com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing a smooth and or­der­ly tran­si­tion of pow­er. We ex­tend our best wish­es to him in his fu­ture en­deav­ours. As the Ho­n­ourable Stu­art Young, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, pre­pares to as­sume the role of Prime Min­is­ter, AM­CHAM T&T re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing along­side the gov­ern­ment to sup­port a seam­less tran­si­tion and a pros­per­ous fu­ture for all cit­i­zens.”

The T&T Cham­ber al­so said it looked for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing with in­com­ing lead­er­ship.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, it said, “The Cham­ber al­so takes note of the de­ci­sion by the Gov­ern­ment to ap­point Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, Stu­art Young SC, as the act­ing prime min­is­ter. As the coun­try pre­pares for the tran­si­tion in lead­er­ship, we re­main com­mit­ted to en­gag­ing with the gov­ern­ment to en­sure con­tin­ued progress in key ar­eas, in­clud­ing eco­nom­ic growth, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and strength­en­ing the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment through ef­fec­tive pub­lic-pri­vate sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion.”

It added, “The chal­lenges ahead, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ad­dress­ing crime and fos­ter­ing eco­nom­ic re­silience, re­quire a com­pre­hen­sive and in­clu­sive ap­proach. We look for­ward to work­ing close­ly with the in­com­ing lead­er­ship to ad­vance poli­cies that en­hance na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, and ease of do­ing busi­ness. As the voice of busi­ness, we re­main stead­fast in our ad­vo­ca­cy for a sta­ble and pros­per­ous Trinidad and To­ba­go and will con­tin­ue to cham­pi­on ini­tia­tives that pro­mote sus­tain­able growth and in­vest­ment in the coun­try.”