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  • 9 months ago
Economist Dr. Indira Sagewan says the country must appreciate that whatever is in the treasury at this time, is nothing significant.

She also says focus must be place on agriculture and Tourism to both increase and maintain our foreign exchange.

Tv6's Nicole M Romany has more.
Transcript
00:00Our food and port bill right now is currently 1 billion US dollars.
00:06If we were to be able to just set that target and then look at the agriculture and our processing
00:14and see where we need to support in order to be able to do that, we could be well on our way.
00:20In this instance, not necessarily earning foreign exchange, but saving our scarce foreign exchange.
00:25She also notes plans by the Prime Minister to look into oil and gas exploration with Grenada
00:32and the warnings from former Energy Minister Stuart Young.
00:36According to Dr. Sajuan, the previous administration was all about Dragon Gas
00:42and now Prime Minister Kamala Passat-Bissessa has every right to explore the possibilities with regional partners.
00:49The economist further suggests that priority be given to the non-energy sector.
00:55I'm a broken record on the issue of non-energy diversification and while it cannot by any means
01:03in a very short space of time bring us the kind of revenue we have lost from the energy sector,
01:10its potential to generate employment, foreign exchange, forex is significantly high.
01:19On the issue of the 10% offered by Mrs. Passat-Bissessa to trade unions,
01:24some have speculated that it was empty words and others remain hopeful it bears fruit.
01:31However, Dr. Sajuan says now that the union is part of government,
01:36the perspective on such matters should be different.
01:39The union is at the table, the union is part of this government
01:43and if you are part of the government, then you cannot behave in the same way
01:48that you would behave if you're on the outside.
01:51So the decision-making by the union has to be now from a governance perspective,
01:58not from an agitator.
02:00Nicole M. Romany, TV6 News.
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