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C News Live
BREAKING: Central Bank Governor Jwala Rambarran has announced that Trinidad & Tobago's economy is now officially in a recession. Speaking at the Central Bank's Monetary Policy Forum Rambarran said T&T recently suffered its fourth quarter of negative growth and a decline in real GDP.
I have never heard the definition for recession being four quarters of negative growth...
In a 1975 New York Times article, economic statistician Julius Shiskin suggested several rules of thumb for defining a recession, one of which was two down consecutive quarters of GDP.[3] In time, the other rules of thumb were forgotten. Some economists prefer a definition of a 1.5-2 percentage points rise in unemployment within 12 months.[4]
In the United States, the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is generally seen as the authority for dating US recessions. The NBER defines an economic recession as: "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales."[5] Almost universally, academics, economists, policy makers, and businesses defer to the determination by the NBER for the precise dating of a recession's onset and end.
In the United Kingdom, recessions are generally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, as measured by the seasonal adjusted quarter-on-quarter figures for real GDP.[6][7] The exact same recession definition applies for all member states of the European Union.
Habit7 wrote:Last quarter ended Sept 30, 21 days after PNM came into office, but the 4 quarters of recession is their fault.
16 cycles wrote:Pdk pass 5000 already...
*awaits PP supporters comments eurotuner wrote::drama: *awaits PP supporters comments
Howai: T&T not anywhere near recession
Published on Aug 11, 2015, 8:43 pm AST
By By Aleem Khan
AS the proverbial “election year” comes to a close, with September 7 less than a month away, a look at key economic indicators suggest that Trinidad and Tobago’s economy has slowed, albeit aneamically and with some recessionary conditions.
The country is, however, “not at all anywhere near a recession,” Finance Minister Larry Howai retorted when asked last week.
Looking at the definition of a recession - two consecutive quarters of falling gross domestic product (GDP) - according to Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (CBTT) data, GDP slowed 200 basis points (bps) in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2014 to 0.1 per cent from 2.1 per cent in the third quarter (Q3) of the same year.
Although Q1 and Q2 2015 GDP are not yet officially out, the CBTT in its May (2015) Monetary Policy Report said: “In Trinidad and Tobago, early evidence suggests economic activity was anaemic in the first quarter of 2015 as maintenance-related activity once again weighed on the energy sector’s performance.”
On June 1, at a monetary policy forum with the San Juan Business Association at Angostura House in Laventille, Central Bank Governor Jwala Rambarran said: “Since the release of our last Monetary Policy Report in early December 2014, Trinidad and Tobago’s economic performance has been subdued with a rapid succession of negative headline economic news restraining the country’s economic outlook.”
At the same forum, Rambarran said: “Central Bank estimates real GDP contracted by a modest 0.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2015, the first such decline since the second quarter of 2012 when real GDP fell by a deeper 2.5 per cent.” Technically, that would qualify as two consecutive quarters of decline.
However, when asked Howai said in an August 4 e-mail: “We did not have two consecutive quarters of decline. You need also to understand the structure of our economy and why looking at the headline number can be misleading. An economic recession is also characterised by a general economic decline. This has not been the case in our economy. While the energy sector contracted due to problems associated with gas output, the non-energy sector which is all of the other sectors (finance, real estate, agriculture, manufacturing, construction) continued to show solid growth. The growth in all the other sectors was weighed down by the performance of the energy sector, given (the energy sector’s) weight in the economy.”
To be generous, this was a tad different from what the Central Bank said in its July 31 monetary policy announcement when CBTT economists cited “weaker-than-anticipated growth in the non-energy sector in the first half of 2015” as one of the three reasons the financial regulator lifted the repo rate to 4.25 per cent, signalling it thought interest rates could stay on the up and up.
Still, Howai said, “A further feature of a recession is that unemployment tends to be high.”
While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Moody’s Investors Service have said it is artificially propped up by make-work and social welfare programmes, Howai argued that “at 3.7 per cent (Q1 2015), our unemployment level is one of the lowest in the world.”
In addition, he said, the housing market tends to have serious problems in a recession as a result of a fall in demand and consequent fall in prices.
“This also has not been part of the local landscape. In fact prices have remained buoyant and demand remains strong.”
He said retail activity remains strong and is particularly underlined by continuing vehicle sales.
Howai said: “These factors point to the difference in the structure of our economy compared with many others, and that it is misleading to look at only one indicator such as the overall growth rate. It also points to the need to exercise care when prescribing solutions for what one might perceive as a problem. The energy sector is an ‘offshore’ sector and policy decisions need to take that into consideration. An attempt to stimulate the economy, in the conditions just outlined, where a substantial part of it is at full employment levels, could exacerbate inflationary pressures and increase foreign exchange demand. By and large the ‘onshore’ sectors continue to be buoyant with continuing strong activity and is not at all anywhere near a recession.”
Businesss groups try to stay ahead of low oil
Asked how he sees the Trinidad and Tobago economy performing, Couva Point Lisas Chamber of Commerce (CPCC) president Liaquat Ali said last week there has been an economic slowdown in the country as a result of falling oil and gas prices over the last eight to nine months but primarily in the energy sector. He acknowledged that there has been a spillover into the non-energy sector but hesitated to say his members’ businesses declined. He said they are very innovative and still kept their businesses profitable. He said some may not have grown as strongly as they would have liked, stressing that this was true especially for the agricultural sector. (See page 6)
San Juan Business Association president Vivek Charran, responding to the same question, said that he was seeing “business as usual” in the economy with capital expenditure continuing as planned. He expects a slowdown in consumption in the last two weeks before the election. However, he does not see this as a reflection of the health of the economy but just a function of the election machinery.
He said from his perspective in San Juan, “nobody has any complaints”.
He said he is a member of another business organisation as well and “nobody has anything to say - whether it’s better or worse or anything.”
Charran said: “I don’t believe we are in a recession, but what I believe is that the fall in oil prices has yet to hit us in a major way.”
He said regardless of which party comes into government after September 7, continued low oil prices and competition from different sources of energy will affect the economy.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20150811 ... -recession
zoom rader wrote:Cah believe ppl vote for this
zoom rader wrote:Cah believe ppl vote for this
zoom rader wrote:Cah believe ppl vote for this
Trinispougla wrote:zoom rader wrote:Cah believe ppl vote for this
The last quarter ended at the end of September. Low revenue prices, a contentious highway financed by cannibalized payments and a very long election campaign is responsible for this. Anyways, blaming really not helping. This is child's play when compared to 1983 when the price of oil went under 15 dollars a barrel. It tough, but we certainly not going to go through what we went through in the 80s
j.o.e wrote:zoom rader wrote:Cah believe ppl vote for this
hush yuh stink mouth
snatman wrote:so the biggest foreign exchange user in teh country is...
Pricesmart???
PRICESMART??
is so much ah allyuh shopping there?
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