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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
 Nassau, Bahamas - Remarks By Hon. C. V. Hope Strachan, M.P. Minister Of Financial Services Commonwealth Of The Bahamas at Exporters’ Meeting On The Trade Information Service Portal Superclubs Breezes 18th January, 2016:
Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this Information Session on The Bahamas’ Trade Information Service Desk and Electronic Portal, aimed specifically at those Bahamian businesses currently exporting and those interested in exporting to international markets.
Although the official launch of the Trade Portal is tentatively scheduled for early March 2017, when my Office advised of plans to convene a meeting of current and potential exporters in order to encourage participation in the Portal’s Exporters’ Directory, I thought it an opportune time to offer a few remarks to you and to the business community at large about the importance of this Trade Portal for The Bahamas and what the Government of The Bahamas and the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce & Employers Confederation envisage that the Trade Portal can do to assist local businesses. I want to personally assure you of the full support of my Ministry which has responsibility for international trade matters – as well as the support of the Government of The Bahamas at large concerning this Trade Portal.
The establishment of the Trade Portal is a part of the Government’s ongoing efforts to diversify our economy by expanding trade with regional, hemispheric and international trading partners. Currently a Bahamian entrepreneur seeking to export his or her product to a foreign market will have to sift through an excessive amount of information to find reliable trade information on The Bahamas which could provide guidance on how to export that product. This, I am sure you would agree, makes doing business with The Bahamas unnecessarily difficult and expensive.
Therefore, with grant funding provided by the European Union through the technical assistance component of the CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement, and subsequent to an international bidding process, the International Trade Centre (a specialised joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations) was retained to provide the services to design and develop a Trade Portal in mid-2016.
The intention of this Trade Portal is to create a “one-stop-shop” to access important national, regional and international trade information such as export/import statistics, information on trade regulations – such as quality requirements and standards, certification requirements and rules of origin – as well as shipping information, company profiles and key information on trade agreements. The Portal will serve as an important business facilitation tool by reducing the cost and time required to access trade information, and in turn improve the ease of doing business in The Bahamas.
Ladies and Gentlemen, a major feature of the Trade Portal is the development of an Exporters Directory. The Exporter Directory is intended to be a tool that will connect you with potential buyers who will have the ability to search the directory by using key words such as products, sectors, or certifications. The Exporter Directory will also provide you with a valuable opportunity to showcase your company through individualised company profiles featuring products available for export. This is a critical feature of the Trade Portal and critical to businesses seeking to attract potential international buyers. It is also useful to inform those buyers outside The Bahamas about what our business community has to offer.
Currently the use of the Portal and registering on the Exporter Directory is free. We strongly urge that you take full advantage of this aspect of the Portal in order to promote your business and its products to the world. We have made available the necessary forms to be completed if you are interested in being featured in this Exporters Directory. These forms should be completed and returned to the Ministry’s Officers here today.
Those of you who are not currently exporting, rest assured that the Trade Portal as well as its Service Desk, when launched, can also assist you. The Trade Portal will provide you as potential exporters with critical information to help you assess your export readiness and prepare you to export. We envisage that the Portal’s “10 Steps to Exporting Guide” and the Exporter Toolkit which include Market Analysis Tools, Export Financing and Technical Support Guides will be particularly useful.
Ladies and Gentleman you can see that much work has gone into the development and launch of this Trade Portal. However, we would welcome your constructive feedback on what has been developed to date.
All of the work did not take place within a silo at the Ministry of Financial Services. Allow me to publically thank the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation for its collaborative efforts in contributing to the development of the content for the Trade Portal and promoting its objectives and benefits . You have proven to be an integral partner in this initiative to date.
I would also like to express appreciation to all those stakeholders who have given input thus far including the various government agencies involved in developing and tailoring the content for the Portal, the Customs Department, the Department of Statistics, the Department of Information and Technology, the Bahamas Investment Authority, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Marine Resources, the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC) and the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) to name a few. The work has just begun and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with you in the future.
Without further ado Ladies and Gentleman, I hand you over to the capable hands of Mr. Joost van der Kooi, the lead Technical Consultant from the Dutch company Globally Cool which is working along with the International Trade Centre in the development of the Trade Portal.
© Copyright 2017 by thebahamasweekly.com
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