CARIBBEAN PERSPECTIVES
A monthly column on Caribbean issues
The writer is a business consultant and specialist in Caribbean Affairs
Sandra Ann Baptiste
Caribbean private sector leaders want the region’s Heads of Government to meet more regularly, to revamp their decision-making authority and to treat the business community as partners by reinstating annual meetings with the regional umbrella private sector organisation.

Member organisations of the Trinidad and Tobago-based Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC) want the CARICOM leaders to meet with business leaders at least once a year and for the leaders themselves to consult more often on regional issues, including by teleconferencing.

The region’s business executives share the disappointment of CAIC President, Carol Evelyn, who flew from St.Kitts and Nevis to Guyana for the CARICOM Summit along with Carol Ayoung, the CEO from Trinidad, but did not make a presentation to the Heads of Government, as they expected.

CARICOM Secretariat officials advised that a meeting with CAIC was not on the Summit agenda. Heads of Government a few years ago revamped the traditional annual forum for presentations from CAIC, the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). Instead, the CARICOM leaders prefer issues of concern to the private sector to be channeled to them through the Community Council of Ministers, especially the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED). Private sector views were taken into account in Summit discussions on the global financial and economic crisis and tourism.

The Barbados Manufacturers Association’s President, Ian Pickup, contends that there is no substitute for the face-to-face meetings between the CARICOM Heads of government and the private sector, regarded as “ the engine of trade and growth”. CAIC did not make a presentation to the Heads last year due to problems with travel arrangements affecting the then CAIC president but points to presentations at the Barbados CARICOM Summit in 2007 and the previous year.

Perhaps it may be more productive for the regional private sector grouping to put together its proposals and position papers on regional issues by the first quarter of each year so they can be analysed and assessed in time for the annual Summit. Discussions with the CARICOM leaders do not necessarily have to take place at the annual Conference, which usually has a packed agenda. In addition to an annual forum, consideration may be given to on-going dialogue between the business leaders and the CARICOM Bureau, which comprises three Heads of Government.

While some key business organisations feel the region’s political leaders are sending a “bad signal to the region’s private sector”, the CAIC President is confident that the Heads of Government will take their proposals into consideration as they move towards the full implementation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

The CAIC, in a written submission to the Guyana Conference, also urged that concrete action be taken to facilitate the long-mooted Caribbean Stock Exchange as well as a Regional Credit Bureau.

The CAIC President feels another CARICOM task force on the global economic and financial crisis may not be the most feasible solution. He advocates that CARICOM build on the eight-point Stabilisation and Growth program developed by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) playing a key role. The Plan includes fiscal reform, debt management, public sector investments, social safety nets, an amalgamation of indigenous commercial banks and the rationalisation, development and regulation of the insurance sector.

Evelyn believes the closest the region will get to a Caribbean Stock Exchange is through the political union of Trinidad and Tobago and Eastern Caribbean States.

The CAIC wants immigration laws to be changed, among other things, to facilitate the regional unification of accreditation of skills other than university graduates and does not believe that adding domestic labour to the list for free movement within the Single Market should have been a priority until after previous commitments were fulfilled.

The private sector leaders welcome the move to set up a Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency “to establish an effective regional regime of sanitary and phyto- sanitary measures”, which they feel must be standardised and accepted across the region, but there is skepticism over the actual implementation.

The CAIC President also wants to see more regional harmonised policies in areas such as education, communication, tourism, transportation and agriculture.

On Agriculture, Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) President, Ramesh Dookhoo, laments the “constant lip service” by other CARICOM countries on making agricultural investments in Guyana.

The GMSA is pleased that the Summit communiqué “agreed that Member States should extend to intra-regional imports of new food products treatment no less favourable than that extended to extra-regional imports of new food products, including risk assessment inspections” but questions whether this will actually result in the removal of “red tape” at Caribbean ports.

The GMSA believes the planned October CSME “Convocation” will only succeed if there is a genuine attitude by producers across the region to create space for Caribbean products. Otherwise, the association expects huge trade imbalances to persist.

Jamaica Manufacturers Association (JMA) President, Omar Azan, highlighted his frustrations about trade imbalances in a recent address to the JMA’s Annual General Meeting (AGM). “In 2008, Jamaica’s trade deficit with CARICOM stood at minus US$1.6 Billion. I therefore question what is the benefit of CARICOM to Jamaica?”

He is fearful that if the Dominican Republic is granted membership in CARICOM “ DR products could wipe out our manufacturing base due to the size of their domestic market and their efficiencies.”

Ozan also told Jamaican manufacturers that their entrepreneurial spirit should not be blocked by “non-tariff barriers, the weak capacity of trade regulatory agencies and bureaucracy.”

Barbadian manufacturers are not pleased with the response when their customs officials try to certify that “CARICOM” goods coming into Bridgetown are truly made in the region. The BMA wants to see cooperation rather than confrontation.

Like their Barbadian counterparts, Trinidadian manufacturers want “free and fair trade” within CARICOM. Greg Laughlin, President of the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers Association (TTMA) is pressing, among other things, for clear CARICOM guidelines and standards to be developed for agriculture and meats.

He observes that the slow movement in developing regional standards is causing some manufacturers to produce to a national standard that may not be acceptable in other CARICOM Member States, leading to intra-regional problems.

Laughlin believes the way to resolve trade disputes is not to “go down the road Jamaica did by issuing threats” but by CARICOM leaders and Ministers displaying more mature leadership.

As far as the TTMA is concerned, the regional integration process has not moved forward in the past five years. Trinidadian manufacturers had expectations that the Guyana Summit would serve as a catalyst to reinvigorate CARICOM but Laughlin feels this is “left to be seen.”

In the meantime, the region’s private sector is pressing ahead with their own agenda, in particular the establishment of a broad-based Caribbean Business Council. Membership of the new organisation will include current CAIC affiliates, the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA), the West Indies Rum and Spirits Producers Association (WIRSPA), regional employers, labour movement, agri-business, shipping and insurance groups.