From:TheBahamasWeekly.com
How Export Competitive is the Caribbean?
By Joellen Laryea
Oct 14, 2015 - 9:51:42 PM
Pamela Coke Hamilton, Executive Director, Caribbean Export.
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Bridgetown, BARBADOS - A new initiative to measure
the Export Competitiveness of CARIFORUM is being spearheaded by the
Caribbean Export Development Agency (Caribbean Export) it was announced
yesterday at the opening of the first workshop on the conceptualisation
of an Export Competitiveness Index Model for CARIFORUM.
Gathered
at the Agency headquarters in Warrens, Barbados - representatives from
across the region will develop a comprehensive system to measure and
monitor the competitiveness of exports from the regions private sector.
“It
is our vision that by developing the ECI, decision makers in CARIFORUM
States will be better able to understand the competitiveness of their
exports, make the necessary adjustments to the types of business support
services provided to exporters, amend national export strategies, and
ultimately revise regulations and policies to improve the overall
business environment for exporters, redounding to the benefit of SMEs”
expressed Executive Director of the Agency, Pamela Coke Hamilton.
Over
the next six years the European Union has pledged to provide €102
million towards regional economic cooperation and integration, HE Amb
Mikael Barfod indicated to the audience, much of which is said to be
earmarked for private sector development. “A Regional Export
Competitiveness Index or ECI will provide a sound empirical framework to
measure and monitor the competitiveness of exports from the Caribbean
region and most importantly guide the future development of mitigating
actions and measures” he stated whilst divulging that the EU was
enthused by the introduction of an ECI in view of their efforts over the
past two years “in enhancing the ability of the regional private sector
to produce and sell goods and services at prices and quality that
ensure long term viability and sustainability.”
Thus it
is makes it critical to know how well the Caribbean’s private sector
stacks up against the rest of the world in the provision of goods and
services. Senator the Honourable Darcy Boyce, stressed that “If our
economies are to overcome the low economic growth performance we have
experienced in recent years, our export earning sectors must grow to
earn the necessary foreign exchange to handle such growth”. The Senator
went on to say that “we therefore need to manage our export
competitiveness and to do so, we need to know what our competitive edge
is, how great that edge is, whether we are gaining or losing ground in
that edge and whether we are making the best use of that edge”.
The
workshop will conclude today and it is anticipated that the team will
have identified the main criteria for the indices to move forward. The
salient aspect however will be collection of the data required, in view
of the poor history in effective data capture.
Senator The Hon Darcy Boyce, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for energy, immigration, telecommunications and Invest Barbados.
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