The Billion $ Industry That Could be Pan

08, Feb 1999
'... the entertainment sector as a whole ranked sixth in the national economy in terms of export earnings in 1995...'

'The niche markets are there for pan, from Japan to Los Angeles...'

The Industry and Trade Division of Tidco commissioned a study by Drs Ralph Henry and Keith Nurse on the entertainment sector of Trinidad and Tobago. The study, which was completed and presented in September 1996, indicated that, in 1995, the entertainment sector roped in total foreign earnings of TT $253 million or US $42.2 million.

Approximately 75 per cent of that total sum, $180 million to be exact, was derived directly from Carnival and the tourism generated therein through pan, calypso and mas, the historic handmaidens of Carnival.

Events relating to tourism, outside of Carnival, warranted little consideration, given the reality that obtains locally. The only other significant contributory category to the overall total, besides Carnival, was the foreign earnings from "overseas performances" that was put at TT $59 million.

Most of this is directly related to the performances of pannists, calypsonians and mas designers who are employed abroad throughout the year in other "Carnivals," all of which have been off-shoots of TT's Carnival.

At last count, there were close to 100 such TT generated Carnivals around the world. In fact, as a result of all this, the entertainment sector as a whole ranked sixth in the national economy in terms of export earnings in 1995.

But this is nothing unusual given world trends. The study states in its overview the following:
"The music industry is of tremendous importance to the economies of the developed countries. In the United States, the copyright industries, which include the music industry, account for six per cent of GDP, five per cent of employment, and rivals the auto industry in terms of sales.

In the United Kingdom, the publishing and popular music industries have proven to be dynamic and competitive, relative to other sectors in the economy.

"Pop music, for example, generated half a billion dollars in overseas royalty earnings in the mid-1980s. In Canada, revenue from cultural industries increased by over 40 per cent, from $5.3 billion to $7.5 billion, between 1987 and 1991, at a time when sales from other sectors were falling."

The point is that the entertainment sector, taken singularly or more so coupled with the tourism it generates, has become today a major growth path for most countries, given the global recessionary trends and the pressure on commodity prices throughout.

All the development strategies of the past decades, in which we sought to diversify from the oil monoculture in order to develop a domestic competitive manufacturing capacity, and to use our vast proven reserves of natural gas to fuel petrochemical and interrelated development, have to some extent been subverted by various constraints such as the fluctuation of commodity prices on the world market, the sudden flights and shifts of capital so typical with foreign investments and, thirdly, by the fact that all such modern development have been capital intensive rather than labour intensive.

Investments of $300 million in plant and equipment to create 60 permanent jobs means simply that it takes an injection of $5 million to create one single job.

Only we in TT seem to be oblivious to what is clear to everyone else. It is essential to all countries, whether developed or developing, that there be interlinking sectors, domestic-driven and generated, that are labour intensive, that can serve to absorb human resources and create a whole new and diverse range of products that can find niche markets around the world.

The first task is to dispel the nonsensical notion that cultural products are about pleasure and not big business.

The $253 million that the study attributes to Carnival and Carnival related activity did not come about due to any astute planning or corporate policy formulation on anybody's behalf.

It came through the whims and fancies of individuals who saw opportunities and seized them. The time has come for us to do away with the vaille-que-vaille approach to our national concerns.

We need to firmly establish and extend the entertainment sector to take up the slack and cushion the fallout that is upon us as a result of the uncertainties and vagaries of the energy and the energy-based industrial sector.

The designers and mas players have shown us that they can extend the surplus value of mas designs and actual costumes through export to other Carnivals, just as the Japanese do with their used cars.

And while calypso desperately needs direction and corporate experimentation as to how best it can be packaged and marketed as the major ingredient in all of what is now termed world beat fusion, the pan needs nothing but common sense and national political will, to be translated almost immediately into a potential billion dollar industry.

The niche markets are there for pan, from Japan to Los Angeles.

Listen to this scenario: a decade ago, one pan pioneer came home and told officials in the Ministry of Culture that he had before him a particular consideration that involved the establishing of a steelband unit in every chapter of the Boy Scout movement in the USA. All he desired of the State were two guarantees:
that pan-tuning schools be set up throughout TT, so that pan-tuners could be had in critical mass enough to take up residence abroad and be housed wherever in the world a pan unit is established in order to maintain the pans; that pan-tuning tools and implements be specially designed, manufactured and packaged professionally, with the help of Iscott and MIC, to accompany the worldwide marketing of the instrument.

That, mind you, from a supposedly uneducated pan pioneer, whom many in the Ministry did not take seriously. In fact some of our pan pioneers have insisted, symbolically, that one day the discarded oil drum will come to mean more to the social well-being of this nation than oil itself.

Who is to doubt the possibilities?

All it requires is intelligent functioning. Maybe the time has come for us to stop listening to any politician who has no policy on pan and calypso.