NGC board needs lesson in economics

THE EDITOR: I call on the relevant department of UWI and the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business to urgently arrange a 101 Economics course on the price elasticity of supply and demand for the current board of state-owned NGC.

In their efforts to increase revenue, NGC has targeted local manufacturers for a sudden steep increase in natural gas prices which will surely escalate the cost of some of our locally produced goods.

The previous PNM government also made a similar myopic and short-sighted decision to increase gas prices that led to the closure of the ArcelorMittal steel-making facility in 2016, with the resulting loss of jobs and foreign exchange earnings.

One wonders how this increase in gas prices would affect the aim of the Ministry of Trade Investment and Tourism to increase exports, strengthen investments and boost employment when the NGC's action will have the opposite effect.

Local manufacturers are already reeling from increases in electricity and NIS as well as having to battle against cheap subsidised imports which affects their ability to compete both locally and in foreign markets.

China recently imposed a tax on export on some raw materials to encourage more production of their locally produced downstream items, which adds value to their economy, increases productivity, employment and exports.

The USA introduced tariffs to encourage their locally produced goods to be more competitive.

In Trinidad and Tobago, we are heading in the opposite direction, by making foreign goods more competitive than our own, reducing our productivity, employment and foreign exchange earnings as well as the numerous value-added advantages it brings to the economy.

This is an ideal time to hope and pray that God is a Trini, to have these and other similar decisions overturned, or else it will cause TT inevitable economic demise.

S.RAMJOHN

Princes Town