The manufacturing and export sectors in fifteen Caribbean countries are expected to benefit from a US$32.5 million Inter American Development Bank (IDB) project which targets the growth of the non-traditional export sectors in the region.
Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago are all expected to benefit from Complete Caribbean, a project that will provide technical assistance and investment funding for various small and medium-sized enterprises, the over-arching objective being to establish productive development policies, implement business climate reforms and launch cluster initiatives.
Complete Caribbean, though administered by the IDB, is a joint initiative that also involves the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) which is contributing US$18.70 million to the programme and the UK’s Department of International Development (DFID).
Complete Caribbean comes in the wake of the global recession which severely impacted several Caribbean territories, given their inherent constraints associated with size and limited room for diversification. Visitor arrivals were significantly reduced, regional exports to metropolitan markets declined considerably and foreign direct investment decreased, resulting in a decline in income.
IDB Project Team Leader Jose Jorge Saavedra is quoted in a May 13 news story in the Barbados Nation as saying that “even without the burden of the global downturn, the Caribbean economies face the structural challenge of defining new areas of competitive advantage.” Saavedra said the IDB hoped Complete Caribbean would “help the region overcome some of its constraints to growth and help increase productivity, exports and employment in strategic sectors.”
A significant feature of the programme is that it seeks the collaboration of regional institutions, governments and private sector entities in a joint effort aimed at providing opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. The IDB says that it will establish and manage a programme coordinating unit in Barbados and will provide the expertise to identify, design and implement the projects included in Complete Caribbean.
The IDB envisages that Complete Caribbean could push the contribution of the region’s non-traditional exports from its current estimated 2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 5 per cent by 2017.
The project is also expected to create around 8,000 jobs in the region and the bank says that the 15 participating countries “are expected to advance their positions in the global rankings measuring competitiveness and business climate.”
