Jul 2010 Financial News

RBTT CEO Sookoo sees economic growth in 2011

Jul 08, 2010

Suresh Sookoo, chief executive officer, RBTT Financial Group, is optimistic about the T&T economy and the rest of the region. “For the commodity-based economies like T&T and Suriname, growth will be a little more optimistic. Prices have bounced back. There is a sense that prices may be beginning to solidify. We have been seeing an upswing in gas prices. We feel that T&T should go back into positive economic growth next year, which should have positive impact on the banks,” he said.

Sookoo said the global economic downturn showed how the Caribbean economies are interconnected with the rest of the world. “One of the big things that came out of the downturn is how interconnected we are with the rest of the world. Our consumers and our businesses are seeing Bloomberg and we get instant news in the United States and Eurozone.

“Yes, our economy did go into negative growth, but relative to the rest of the world, we are still in very good shape. “Mentally, our citizens did what a lot of the rest of the world was doing and de-leveraged rather than borrow and actually reduced level of borrowing because they wanted to feel safer and wanted to have more free cash to survive in the economy. So people would put off building an extra room in their home or buying a new car and not look to take a loan to improve that, he said.

He said businesses have also taken the same wait and see attitude.
“Businesses have said, instead of expanding their factory, hiring new people add more product lines, they’re going to stick with what they have. Extract the cashflows out of that and stay conservative. Because of this, they need to show more aggression and optimism so people would say T&T has a bright future and get back to a positive outlook and economy.” Sookoo was speaking in an interview at RBTT’s head office, St Clair, last week Wednesday.


Source:
Raphael John-Lall
Trinidad Guardian
Thursday July 8, 2010

http://guardian.co.tt/business/business-guardian/2010/07/08/rbtt-ceo-sookoo-sees-economic-growth-2011