Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

Anand Rag­bir, a vice pres­i­dent at Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), is the new chair­man of Evolv­ing Tec­knolo­gies and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (eTecK). The de­ci­sion to sup­port the ap­point­ment was made on Tues­day.In an in­ter­view on Wednes­day at a stake­hold­ers meet­ing and en­gage­ment din­ner for the re­gion­al Car­i­fo­rum/EU rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain, Rag­bir said first on his agen­da is to iden­ti­fy and main­tain the clear de­mar­ca­tion and man­date be­tween eTecK and In­vesTT.

The stake­hold­ers meet­ing and din­ner was host­ed by the Min­istry of Trade as part of the 2nd Car­i­fo­rum/EU Par­lia­men­try meet­ing, which end­ed yes­ter­day.Rag­bir said in the past the two en­ti­ties have shared a chair­man and in­ter­re­lat­ed ob­jec­tives, but they have now been sep­a­rat­ed.Rag­bir said an­oth­er key is­sue he will be fo­cus­ing on is op­ti­mis­ing the avail­able as­sets of eTecK, which in­clud­ing the parks, as well as pos­si­ble in­vest­ments in ho­tels.

"I would fo­cus on putting mech­a­nisms in place to op­ti­mise on the in­fra­struc­ture that is al­ready there and in­vest­ments in oth­er as­sets like ho­tels, etc."Rag­bir, who was head of Fi­nance at BP for ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten years, said he will draw from his wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing for multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies in the en­er­gy sec­tor.Rag­bir has been at NGC just over a year since leav­ing BP.

Com­ment­ing on what he brings to eTecK that will as­sist tha com­pa­ny in achiev­ing its man­date suc­cess­ful­ly, he said: "I have worked with multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies all my ca­reer. I have spent most of my ca­reer in the oil and gas busi­ness and they hold very strong­ly to best prac­tices in terms of per­for­mance and per­for­mance man­age­ment."