Jan 2010 Financial News

Williams: 2% growth for economy in 2010

Jan 22, 2010

The good news is that Trinidad and Tobago’s economy should grow by two per cent this year after no expansion last year.

The bad news is that unemployment and inflation will rise again in 2010.

Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams said yesterday the growth projection of two per cent was predicated on Government’s plans to spend money on infrastructure and housing programmes in the coming months.

It also assumed a gradual recovery in the global economy but was ’subject to sizeable downside risks’, he said during a press briefing on the state of the economy at the Central Bank, Port of Spain.

The turnaround also envisages a recovery in private demand from around the second quarter.

But there may be little improvement in the unemployment rate from around the six per cent projected for the end of 2009.

The unemployment rate in the third quarter of 2009 rose to 5.8 per cent compared to 5.1 per cent in the previous quarter.

Real GDP declined by 5.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2009.

Official international reserves of currency also declined by US$710 million last year, the first year since the start of the decade the country had a loss in foreign reserves.

Official reserves nonetheless remain strong at US$8.5 billion, he noted.

Inflation, now at a low of 1.5 per cent, will edge upward to around five per cent this year and unemployment will level off at six per cent.

He maintained that the rebound in the economy would be led by Government expenditures on infrastructure and housing.


Source:
Curtis Rampersad
Business Editor
Friday, January 22nd 2010

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