At Caribbean roundtable here…

ECLAC convenes discussion on small States structural transformation
THE second meeting of the Caribbean Development Roundtable (CDR) was held in Guyana yesterday, under the theme ‘Macroeconomic Policy for Structural Transformation and Social Protection in Small States’.
Convened by the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the forum, at the Guyana International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, seeks to examine how development in small States could be pursued, after the post-crisis global economy, through greater economic diversification, improved access to finance and strengthened social protection, despite fiscal constraints.
It offers an opportunity for multi-stakeholder dialogue on the challenges facing the Caribbean and discussions surrounded ‘Small States in the global economy after the crisis–towards a new development path’; ‘Diversifying productive structures and improving access to financing in the Caribbean Sub-region’ and ‘Maintaining social protection in small States in the context of declining public resources and access to finance.’
Today, the 24th Session of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) of ECLAC will take place here and key conclusions and recommendations emanating from the CDR will be presented and examined during the ministerial dialogue.
Guyana’s Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, in his address at the opening yesterday, welcomed the participants to this country and apologised for the absence of President Donald Ramotar, who was slated to officiate but could not attend due to other pressing engagements.
Singh said the challenges confronted by small States are known, adding: “The reality is that, today, we face tremendous exposure and vulnerability to global economic and other events and we exercise extremely limited ability to influence those events.
“Against the background of these realities, we struggle as Caribbean policy-makers every day and, particularly, moreso than ever before to strike the balance between achieving fiscal sustainability, that is to say to return our debt levels within acceptable and sustainable norms while, at the same time, confronting the imperative of investing for long term growth and social development, and balancing those two.”

MORE DIFFICULT
The minister observed that, if large economies in Europe are experiencing difficulties, one could certainly imagine how much more difficult a task this is for the Caribbean.
He went on: “I do believe that the UN system has an extremely important role to play and I believe that ECLAC, in particular, has an important role to play in helping us to move from the emotional argument about our vulnerability and about our peculiar challenges to a more credible and robust case being made to the international community about the circumstances of the small States of the Caribbean.”
Singh maintained that the world will not be convinced by an emotional argument and there has to be a more credible, robust, and rigorously articulated case for special treatment of the countries in this Region.
Trinidad and Tobago Minister of Finance, Mr. Winston Dookeran said the conference is timely and recalled that, about 15 years ago, he was invited by ECLAC to a conference of a similar nature. At that time, searching for a new dimension to the challenges that were ahead for the Caribbean.
He said, out of those discussions came a book published by ECLAC entitled ‘The Caribbean Quest – Structural Change in the Emerging Global Order’, which could not have been more timely and remains one of the important interventions of ECLAC, in trying to “develop a thought process based on the realities of the challenges of the day and the vision of the changes that are likely to take place.”

RIGHT FORMULA
Dookeran said: “I have come to the view that, unless we find the right formula by which we can merge the logic of economics with the logic of politics, then we would not be able to get the development right.”
He alluded to what has taken place in the global arena over the last few years with the global crisis and agreed that Caribbean countries have been faced with major challenges.
“One is with respect to the way in which we deal with the issues of being open, vulnerable economies and subject to internal and external shocks and, to some extent, the mainstream thinking, be it to the World Bank, IMF, IDB or elsewhere, have been attempting to measure that problem through arithmetical ratios, trying to assess how, indeed, our ratios for macro-economic stability and sustainability are measured,” Dookeran posited.
According to him, “the ratios are, indeed, a reflection of the state of affairs but do not present to us, a direction for movement forward. It reflects what is movement forward, requires us, in my view, to find very innovative ways that will allow us to have flexibility to adjust as small economies in the Region and therefore, we must focus on the degree of that flexibility that does exist or does not exist or ought to exist and how to make it happen.”
Dookeran said the resilience to cope is another area and he observed: “It is nice to expect that we can cope with these challenges and, at the same time, build a new resilience and, therefore, we shall face, on the agenda, our resilience to cope in the reality that is before us and in the vision of the changing world order.”
The T&T Minister said, perhaps, most important is the capacity to have buffers that are both internally generated and externally supportive.
He said, for now, in his view, the integration models, based on trade and markets do not capture the full scope of the development challenge that is linked to production and distribution and consequently, “we need now to find a convergence model.”
“That is located with the production, distribution and competitiveness but the same time, as it is located in that area, it also deals with the issues of equality,” Dookeran suggested.

VIDEO MESSAGE
In a video message shown to the gathering, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, Ms. Alicia Bárcena said: “I believe this meeting, again, provides us with an excellent opportunity to see how we can really weather, in certain ways, the financial crisis and how to find new opportunities for markets, for capital, for technology transfer that could be of benefit for small States.”
She reminded that, since 2008, the Caribbean economies have suffered quite considerably and they are struggling due to decline in tourism, existing high public debt, fiscal and current account deficits and some structural weaknesses, among other things.
“We believe that, in 2012, the economic performance of the Caribbean will be much better. We perceive that it could be around 1.7 percent,” she said.
According to her: “One of the things that ECLAC is working on is a very important issue. In our view, structural change is the path and that greater equality is our goal.
“We have to make a move towards structural change. That is, we really need to change the way we are producing and that’s why we are proposing a strategy for economic growth that emphasises investment, integration and innovation.”
Another very important challenge, she pinpointed, is how to improve the role of regional integration and an also extremely important issue is the vulnerability of Caribbean States to natural disasters and climate change.
“We have been working very closely and we hope to continue within the framework of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, which represents, I believe, a very important sphere of activity in which we can really try to improve those mechanisms,”    Bárcena posited.

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