Researcher suggests focus on regional investors

A university of the West Indies (UWI) international trade researcher is urging the region to put more focus on investment by the local business community and not solely on attracting investment from foreign sources.

In the latest Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Trade Policy Brief produced by the Cave Hill Campus’ Shridath Ramphal Centre for Trade Law, Policy and Services, trade researcher Alicia Nicholls offered that advice. Addressing the ability of countries in the region to meet the United Nations’ SDGs, she noted that “substantial investments will be required in people, infrastructure, and technology”.

Nicholls cited a 2020 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimate that the “annual SDGs financing gap in developing countries could increase by US $1.7 trillion”. Nicholls said foreign direct inflows last year were just US $859 billion “representing a 42 per cent contraction and a one-third decline in international private sector investment flows to developing and transition economies in sectors relevant to the sustainable development goals”.

Nicholls said this was evidence why Caribbean countries’ focus “should not be solely on promoting and facilitating foreign investment, but also investment from their local private sectors and diaspora communities”.

She noted that among the benefits to scaling up diasporic investment was the fact that it offered recipient countries the potential to provide “a more reliable resource flow that is not solely driven by the rate of financial return, particularly in the face of growing global uncertainty”. Also, among the highlights in Nicholl’s policy brief regarding the SDGs was the fact that, “No country in the world, including those in the Caribbean, is on track for meeting all of the SDGs.

While there are a few goals on which the region as a whole, and individual countries, have done well, there has been little progress or some regression on others.” She added: “Achieving the SDGs will require financing from a variety of sources – domestic and external, public and private. As no two Caribbean economies are the same, the exact financing mix will differ by country.”

According to the researcher: “Caribbean countries generally have very open investment regimes but could benefit from more clearly articulated investment policy frameworks and strategies which specifically incorporate the promotion and facilitation of investment in SDG-related sectors.”
(IMC1)