Economy of Trinidad and Tobago

source: CIA World Fact Book 1997

Economy - overview: Trinidad and Tobago has earned a reputation as an excellent investment site for international businesses. Successful economic reforms implemented in 1995 are expected to bring an average growth rate of 2% over the next three years, and foreign investment and trade are flourishing. Unemployment - a main cause of the country's socio-economic problems - is high, but has decreased to its lowest point in five years. The country enjoys a healthy trade surplus of $500 million, yet its heavy dependence on oil and petrochemical prices makes its trade balance vulnerable to sudden shifts. Furthermore, Caricom, Trinidad and Tobago's main market, is saturated, provoking some countries to establish non-tariff trade barriers.

GDP: purchasing power parity - $17.1 billion (1996 est.)

GDP - real growth rate: 3.1% (1996 est.)

GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $13,500 (1996 est.)

• agriculture: 2%
• industry: 45%
• services: 53% (1995 est.)

Inflation rate - consumer price index: 5.3% (1995)

• total: 404,500
• by occupation: construction and utilities 13%, manufacturing, mining, and quarrying 14%, agriculture 11%,
• services 62% (1993 est.)

Unemployment rate: 16.1% (December 1996)

• revenues: $1.65 billion
• expenditures: $1.61 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA (1996 est.)

Industries: petroleum, chemicals, tourism, food processing, cement, beverage, cotton textiles

Industrial production growth rate: 1% (1994 est.)

Electricity - capacity: 1.253 million kW (1995)

Electricity - production: 4.229 billion kWh (1995)

Electricity - consumption per capita: 2,885 kWh (1995 est.)

Agriculture - products: cocoa, sugarcane, rice, citrus, coffee, vegetables; poultry

• total value : $2.3 billion (f.o.b., 1996)
• commodities: petroleum and petroleum products, chemicals, steel products, fertilizer, sugar, cocoa, coffee, citrus, flowers
• partners: US 48%, Caricom countries 15%, Latin America 9%, EU 5% (1994)

• total value: $1.8 billion (c.i.f., 1996)
• commodities: machinery, transportation equipment, manufactured goods, food, live animals
• partners: US 47.7%, Venezuela 10%, UK 8.3%, other EU 8% (1994)

Debt - external: $1.67 billion (1996 est.)

• recipient: ODA, $10 million (1993)

Currency: 1 Trinidad and Tobago dollar (TT$) = 100 cents

Exchange rates: Trinidad and Tobago dollars (TT$) per US$1 - 6.1791 (January 1997), 6.0051 (1996), 5.9478 (1995), 5.9249 (1994), 5.3511 (1993), 4.2500 (1992)

Fiscal year: calendar year

Related Materials

• Shani Mootoo's Trinidad: The '60s and '70s -- an Economic History