The foreign exchange pressures confronting T&T at this time could have been a lot worse had there not been a buoyant manufacturing sector.
That is the view of Arthur Lok Jack, executive chairman of Associated Brands Industries Limited (ABIL), who said the progressive nature of the sector and the willingness of governments to work with the industry to revise and agree appropriate measures for its growth had nourished its export potential, which helped to protect this country’s foreign reserves.
“If we were not manufacturing products and T&T had to import it, my group alone would have to find over US$250 million (annually) to import goods. But we supply the nation with all the goods we have from breakfast cereals, chocolate, snack foods…whatever people want to eat, we supply the nation with that.
“We do not access one dollar of foreign exchange, because we export the products that we make. And, when we export the products that we make, our export revenue is greater that our (cost of) importing raw materials. So we contribute to the foreign exchange earnings. The country gets a free ride in foreign exchange,” he said.
He continued, “There was a newspaper editorial (that said) about $5 billion in food coming into this country. Oh my God! Who believes that? Is not $5 billion dollars worth of raw materials coming into the country! Not food on the supermarkets shelves. Go through the supermarkets and look. All those products are locally produced. So, it’s the raw materials that come into the country.
Lok Jack said the vision of the nation’s manufacturers added considerable value and the sector had been the strength of the economy, helping to ensure that citizens continued to enjoy a good standard of living. Having consumer goods readily available to everyone, without a tremendous cost with regards to foreign exchange was a blessing to the economy, he said.
Lok Jack said it was an error not to classify the petrochemicals sector as part of manufacturing.
“Methanol is not oil. Methanol is not gas. Methanol is methanol, Ammonia is ammonia. These are manufacturing industries. We need to understand how we put these things together,” he said.
The veteran businessman said that to deal with the labour shortage affecting the sector, rather than increase the workforce his company is paying existing staff overtime.
“We (are) struggling in trying to get the whole thing to gain more production. We are here today and manufacturing is one of the industries that hire, I think, a lot of people, about 60,000 people. And, added to that we have a lot of indirect (employment)...the truckers, the raw materials coming in, it is a tremendous amount of activity.
“We have manufacturers who are exporting to all different parts of the world and Africa is one place that we will now be targeting,” Lok Jack said.