Industrial Development, Trade and Transportation

Chair: Chantal Esdelle

Rapporteur: Nzinga Job

Traductor: Chanzo Greenidge

Report adopted by John Lonkc

Seconded by Egla Mondison

Members 11 from Martinique, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbaados.

 

Issues

-         Transport within the Caribbean in particular the cost and the control of it by transnational entities.(this affects trade)

-         Electricity (we need power to produce)

-         Imbalance between imports and exports (we import more than we export)

-         Lack of a working knowledge of the workings of trade within the group

-         Consideration of the efficiency of air and transport travel

-         Should we have a regional body that coordinates this?

-         Should we engage private entities or should this be a consideration of the state?

 

- Tax; CSME and the WTO effect on rescinding many of the tariffs we had on goods from outside of our region

- The question of standards/double standards.  It seems that things are set up for us not to meet international standards.

- The cost of our labour.  Trade unions have battled for us to have better wages but this has affected the competiveness of our goods even within the region.  How do we even this out?

 

Solutions

-         Create a database of traders including farmers for the entire Caribbean (deals with the question of the imbalance between imports and exports)

-         Create an inter-island ferry service by soliciting assistance from gov’t private companies and others to insist on its creation and maintenance. (Water surrounds us we should think about how to figure out navigating it).

-         Protect existing marine transport. 

-         Lobby the governments of the Caribbean to increase their subsidies of transportation industries and link with other states to create unified Caribbean owned transport entities.

-         Create events that increase tourism (actually had a couple examples)

-         Assign an inter Caribbean communications team from the ACP to make Caribbean events made known around the region to facilitate inter regional movement and increase consumption.  This group can also assist in the translation of local/regional airline websites.

-         Lobby for the establishment of a Caribbean energy authority to assess, make an inventory, and provide a strategy for regional energy resource management. (we had identified that we have the potential and, in some cases information to develop, solar, wind, hydro, and wave energy and figure out distribution from energy rich territories like Trinidad and Tobago and Puerto Rico. (Barbados help with solar, Guyana hydro, University based regional research and design).

-         Support existing energy development movements (hydro in Guyana)

 

These are intense projects for which many members of the group need more info about to engage in properly so we now have a list of the members who are interested in continuing as a working group.

 

Working group volunteers

 

Erecia Harry

lonckes@yahoo.com

John Locke

lonckeva@yahoo.com

Emmanuel Peria

emmanuel.p@sara.mq

Nicol Evelyne

same as above

Pedro Franco

forosocial2006@yahoo.es

Priya Ganness Nanton

happriya13@hotmail.com

Chanzo Greenidge

chanzo7@bravocom.net