PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – The Trinidad and Tobago government has blamed inaccurate figures for the decision by the United States-based rating agency, Standard and Poors (S&P) to revise the country’s outlook from stable to negative.

The Ministry of Finance in a statement said that new rating was because the rating agency expects macroeconomic and external imbalances to persist over the next two years.

S&P, in determining its outlook, has pointed to, among things, persistent gas supply shortages noting that it does not expect crude oil production, which, together with oil exploration represents 17 per cent of the energy sector, to increase over the next two years, due to natural decline and uncertainty surrounding new sources of production.

But in its statement, the Ministry of Finance said that with respect to the outlook, it was faced with the challenge of overcoming inaccurate forecasts of oil and gas production given by the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries to S&P.

“Regrettably, however, because of inaccurate estimates of gas production given by the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries earlier this year, which were transmitted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but which bore no relationship to the actual production figures in 2018, the IMF’s current projections of economic growth for Trinidad and Tobago are lower.

“The Ministry of Finance will correct this misinformation in the annual Article 4 consultation with the IMF, which is scheduled to take place within the next two months,” the statement added.

The ministry said that “S&P was unfortunately given lower forecasts of gas production by the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries than the actual 2018 production, as well as inaccurate forecasts of oil production”

It said that the latest data available to the Ministry of Finance indicates that economic growth for Trinidad and Tobago in 2018 is now projected to be between 1.5 and 1.8 per cent and that the forecast is consistent with the figures given by S&P in its latest credit rating update for Trinidad and Tobago.