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Caribbean Islands Industry
Trinidad and Tobago possessed an industrial base that was
unmatched in the Caribbean in the late 1980s and, for a country of
about 1.2 million people, perhaps in the world. As new heavy
industries came on-stream in the early 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago
was a producer of oil, asphalt, natural gas, ammonia and urea
fertilizers, methanol, iron, and steel. Petrochemicals based on
natural gas became the center of the industrial strategy envisioned
in the 1970s to diversify away from oil and export agriculture. In
1985 the petroleum sector accounted for 24 percent of GDP and
nearly 70 percent of export earnings, and it affected most major
sectors of the economy. The country also contained a large
construction sector. Large industrial projects, asphalt roads, and
government housing projects were responsible for the sector's
prominence for decades, frequently making it a barometer of the
economy's general health. The manufacturing sector was relatively
small compared with the rest of the economy. Manufacturing,
historically linked to agricultural processing, was very modern by
the 1980s and comprised the assembly of automobiles, televisions,
and refrigerators and the production of steel. Light manufacturing
was less significant, as Trinidad and Tobago tended to import many
smaller consumer items.
Data as of November 1987
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