CARICOM trade Ministers focus on services

Ministers for trade and economic development in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) today focused on the state of the services industry, the dominant trade in the 15-nation bloc.

Addressing a one-day special meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Trade Sandra Husbands said the meeting sought to review an analysis of the services industry and performance in CARICOM member states

Ministers also examines draft plans for the implementation of a strategy “to take services forward”, said Husbands.

Services is the largest and fastest growing sector in CARICOM, accounting for more than 75 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the Eastern Caribbean, and more than 55 per cent in the more developed member states of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

According to CARICOM, growth in the services sector in recent years had been significant with the 2017 figures indicating an expansion of almost 2.45 per cent to EC$108.5 billion (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents).

Husbands, who is chairing the one-day meeting on behalf of Barbados’ tenure of the community’s six-month chairmanship said that the figures dictate that it was critical that nations paid close attention to the growth of the services sector, as part of efforts to provide citizens with a good life.

She declared that there was a lot of work to be done with respect to creating the environment for the further development of services in order to improve their contribution to the lives of the citizens of the region.

CARICOM Assistant Secretary General for Trade and Economics, Joseph Cox, said that there must be fundamental realignment of “how we do business” in the region, especially from a perspective of education and finance, and a sizeable degree of informal services business.

He called for a strategic review of how concessions were granted in the region, and urged delegates to pay particular attention to finance, banking fees, artificial limits for foreign currency transactions, health and wellness matters, especially non-communicable diseases, and the 2019 coronavirus update.

A Services Project Steering Committee has been coordinating the preparation of a Draft Regional Strategic Plan and Implementation Plan for Professional Services, the CARICOM Secretariat said.

It said priority attention has been given to sub-sectors:  financial services, information and communication technology (ICT), professional services, culture, entertainment and sport, health and wellness, education and tourism.

“Work has also been done on identifying core elements of the Draft Regional Strategic plan including Legislative Framework, Financing Requirements, Incentives, Human Resource Requirements, Technological Needs, Constraints, cross-sectoral Linkages,” the secretariat said in a statement. (CMC)