Tony Fras­er

“In this con­text, the re­gion (Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean) is ben­e­fit­ing from the grow­ing in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion of the strate­gic val­ue of its nat­ur­al re­sources, par­tic­u­lar­ly those linked to the en­er­gy tran­si­tion, food se­cu­ri­ty and clean en­er­gy.”

The con­text, as cit­ed by the Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in its 2026 eco­nom­ic re­port, is the chal­lenge fac­ing the Caribbean econ­o­my not “sim­ply to in­crease com­mod­i­ty ex­ports, but al­so to lever­age these re­sources (raw ma­te­ri­als and se­mi-fin­ished prod­ucts) to pro­mote high­er val­ue-added ac­tiv­i­ties linked to in­no­va­tion and tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.”

Af­ter all the fi­nanc­ing of so­cial wel­fare pro­grammes, the ad­just­ing of fis­cal ex­pen­di­ture to meet rev­enue, adding a tax­a­tion mea­sure here and there, and the Gov­ern­ment seek­ing to keep its cam­paign promis­es to pay pub­lic ser­vants, ful­fill­ing the fis­cal needs of To­ba­go; putting need­ed se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in place to deal with a crim­i­nal­i­ty that has been plagu­ing this coun­try since the 1990s, what ECLAC’s re­port is stat­ing is sim­ple, not in com­pli­cat­ed eco­nom­ic lan­guage: we in T&T and else­where in the Caribbean have to en­hance the val­ue of the nat­ur­al re­sources mined and avail­able in the re­gion by con­vert­ing large quan­ti­ties of the var­i­ous forms of en­er­gy, in­clud­ing the wind, sun and up­grad­ed forms, in­to fin­ished, even high qual­i­ty se­mi-fin­ished prod­ucts for the ex­port mar­ket, and to re­place ex­cess im­ports.

But ECLAC goes fur­ther along the lines of what the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my was in­tend­ed to be when it was es­tab­lished and launched in Grand Anse, Grena­da, back in 1989: the ex­pan­sion and deep­en­ing of in­te­grat­ed re­gion­al pro­duc­tion with­in the CSME, amongst the ex­tend­ed Caribbean-Latin Amer­i­can group of coun­tries—the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States—as es­tab­lished un­der The Time for Ac­tion Re­port of Sir Shri­dath Ram­phal and the dis­tin­guished group of West In­di­ans.

“In an in­creas­ing­ly frag­ment­ed and un­cer­tain in­ter­na­tion­al con­text, re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion is tak­ing on re­newed im­por­tance. Strength­en­ing in­fra­struc­ture, lo­gis­tics, reg­u­la­to­ry con­ver­gence and re­gion­al val­ue chains, to­geth­er with fa­cil­i­tat­ing trade, can en­hance the re­gion’s eco­nom­ic re­silience and com­pet­i­tive­ness.”

Fur­ther, ECLAC makes it clear that “Ul­ti­mate­ly, the favourable trade con­di­tions ex­pect­ed for 2026 of­fer an op­por­tu­ni­ty to align trade, in­dus­tri­al, tech­no­log­i­cal and in­vest­ment poli­cies in sup­port of a more di­ver­si­fied, sus­tain­able and pro­duc­tive po­si­tion in the glob­al econ­o­my, ca­pa­ble of gen­er­at­ing qual­i­ty em­ploy­ment and long-term growth; mod­ern ser­vices ex­ports: in­stru­ments, ca­pac­i­ties and lessons learned.”

It must sure­ly count for some­thing that ECLAC has tak­en on the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ar­tic­u­late the de­vel­op­ment needs of the geo-po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sphere for which it has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

It is im­por­tant to note that the ECLAC ad­vice for eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion in in­dus­tri­al pro­duc­tion has been ad­vo­cat­ed and, as a ma­jor agen­da item for decades; that ECLAC is re­stat­ing it with ex­pan­sions in­di­cates the con­tin­u­ing vi­a­bil­i­ty of the in­te­gra­tion agen­da mod­el.

The eco­nom­ic ex­perts and plan­ners in the re­gion have been telling gov­ern­ments, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, re­port­ing jour­nal­ists and oth­ers in dif­fer­ent fo­ra, and in many writ­ing forms, from Lewis, De­mas, and the mod­ern gen­er­a­tion of econ­o­mists over the last 75-plus years.

Stat­ed in clear terms is the re­al­i­ty of the need for the ex­pan­sion of in­dus­tri­al pro­duc­tion, and that of ser­vices with­in Cari­com-plus is an ab­solute ne­ces­si­ty. There is much talk about ex­pand­ing our trad­ing part­ners out­side of the lim­its im­posed by colo­nial rule, but it can on­ly be of great val­ue to T&T and Cari­com if we have the in­te­grat­ed plat­form base to pro­duce the goods and ser­vices for trade. The re­quire­ment is to go past the colo­nial­ly im­posed agen­da. That re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion trade is ab­solute­ly re­quired if the re­gion as a whole is to sur­vive and pros­per eco­nom­i­cal­ly and col­lec­tive­ly is a sine qua non—an ab­solute ne­ces­si­ty. Yes, we have to main­tain and en­hance trad­ing and eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ships with tra­di­tion­al part­ners in the Unit­ed States and Eu­rope, but widen­ing those tra­di­tion­al al­liances is a must in the world.

I make no claims to be­ing an econ­o­mist; what I have done is to read, un­der­stand and ap­ply, in very sim­ple and un­der­stand­able lan­guage, the re­searched and well-thought-out works of the ex­perts.

Di­vi­sive and in­sult­ing ole talk, bad­john threats and un­sup­port­ed al­le­ga­tions against se­lect­ed groups of cit­i­zens, and the chas­ing of the shad­ows of drug deal­ers will not achieve the above. More­over, the shar­ing of the al­ways di­min­ish­ing in­come, and hav­ing it spent on ever-in­creas­ing im­ports, have not and will not achieve the ob­jec­tives set out for the na­tion.

A point of de­par­ture. A few weeks ago, I fo­cused on the proven in­abil­i­ty of the two ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties, and the post-In­de­pen­dence po­lit­i­cal cul­ture and its in­sti­tu­tion­al con­structs and the need for them to be swept away by Gen­er­a­tion Z (14-29), with old­er pro­gres­sives of­fer­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

Read­ers, ac­cus­tomed to the old po­lit­i­cal cul­ture in which they feel safe and pro­vid­ed for, who thought the sug­ges­tion to move for­ward from the present par­ty cul­ture of the two, ab­surd and un­achiev­able, should note that Ser­bia has stepped up to the chal­lenge. It is go­ing to test the youth.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er, free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme pro­duc­er, and news di­rec­tor at TTT; pro­gramme pro­duc­er, cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad; for­mer cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice; writer for the As­so­ci­at­ed Press; grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona in Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, his­to­ry, pol­i­tics, eco­nom­ics, and from the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, UWI, St Au­gus­tine.