PRIME MINISTER THE HONOURABLE BALDWIN SPENCER

Minister responsible for Foreign Affairs

and International Trade

Remarks

At The Official Handing-over Ceremony

of OAS Trade Reference Centres

to the Government of Antigua and Barbuda

ABI Financial Centre •  Redcliffe Street 

Friday, June 3rd, 2005 

9:00 am

Cabinet Colleagues;

Senior Government Officials;

Ms. Barbara Koschwar and Members of her OAS Team;

Director of the OAS National Office, Ms. Cecily Norris;

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I welcome distinguished members of the OAS team to Antigua and Barbuda.

I applaud the work done by the OAS Office of Growth and Competitiveness.

I thank the OAS for the gift of the Trade Reference Centres that we commission this morning.

It is encouraging that the OAS is fulfilling its responsibility to help smaller states to develop the capacity we need in order to negotiate, implement and administer trade agreements; to take advantage of the benefits offered by freer trade; and to more readily identify available options for foreign direct investment.

The attention that the OAS is giving to the needs of the smaller economies of the hemisphere is a great service to countries that have the most to lose in the liberalisation of global trade.

Within this framework, the OAS is setting up Trade Reference Centers in eleven CARICOM countries.

Through its Foreign Trade Information System, the OAS Office of Trade, Growth and Competitiveness has produced customized Trade Information Databases for each CARICOM country.

These databases will facilitate access to trade-related information.

This includes full texts of trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties, national legislation in trade-related disciplines, trade and tariff data, and relevant articles and studies.

The objective of the Trade Information System Database is to provide a simple and user-friendly mechanism to access regional and country-specific trade data.

The database will also assist the Government of Antigua and Barbuda in bringing this information to all stakeholders.

I urge the Chamber of Commerce, the Employers Federation, the trade unions, the media, and all stakeholders, to seize this opportunity with both hands.

Copies of the Trade Information Database will be provided on CDs to Government ministries and departments, business associations, non-governmental organizations, and service-oriented bodies involved in trade.

We commend all the organizations that have agreed to host Trade Reference Centres.

I particularly commend ABI for generously hosting this ceremony, today.

In addition, ABI has donated a state-of-the-art computer for the Trade Reference Centre.

The Government of Antigua and Barbuda is grateful to the ABI Group for this contribution.

As part of the Hemispheric Cooperation Programme, the OAS is working with the governments and private sectors of a number of Eastern Caribbean countries on approaches to streamline the investment process and create “One-Stop Investment Shops”.

Antigua and Barbuda is now poised to establish our One-Stop Investment Shop.

This will be the Antigua and Barbuda Investment Authority.

The structure, policies, and programmes of the Antigua and Barbuda Investment Authority have emerged from a comprehensive study that was facilitated by the Organisation of American States, and the Foreign Investment Advisory Services of the World Bank Group.

The Antigua and Barbuda Investment Authority will shortly be established by Act of Parliament.

The Authority will employ benchmark best practices in all its functions.

The Antigua and Barbuda Investment Authority will be a genuine One-Stop Investment Shop.

It will coordinate all inputs from all government agencies impacting the investment process.

The Antigua and Barbuda Investment Authority will operate a transparent investment code that will be sanctioned by Parliament.

The Antigua and Barbuda Investment Authority will ensure that prospective investors know the rules of the game - up front - and that they are insulated from improper propositioning by government officials on the take.

I take this opportunity to thank the OAS and the World Bank for the resources that these organisations provided to Antigua and Barbuda for our Investment Authority Study.

As we enhance our capacities, there is pressing need for an audit of prospects for Caribbean states in the liberalised global order.

“A Time to Choose: Caribbean Development in the 21st Century”, a World Bank report reflecting on the Caribbean, provides considerable cause for reflection.

Portions of that report are worth sharing with you.

The Report sees our region at a development crossroads and cautions that if we are to accelerate or even maintain past growth, member nations must take significant and concrete steps to improve productivity and competitiveness and face up to more global competition.

By taking such steps, we are told, we will reposition ourselves strategically as an emerging trading bloc for goods and services.

We are warned that without such action, we risk growing economic marginalisation and erosion of many of the social gains of the last three decades.

Very significantly, the World Bank estimates that the trade preferences and subsidies that CARICOM countries received from Europe and North America over decades, have not made a positive impact on economic development in the region, since European and US imports from the Caribbean have fallen over a 15-year period - 1985-2000 - from 0.71 percent to 0.27 percent.

The World Bank report focuses on the Caribbean Community’s declining market share of international tourist arrivals.

We continue to lose ground to Cuba and Central America; as well as to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

What is disturbing about the World Bank Report is the identification of a growing decline in competitiveness in our region, caused by, among other things, inflation and, possibly, increases in wage rates not accompanied by equivalent measures of productivity.

We must embrace anything that brings home these realities, enlightens us on our options, and assists us in navigating the competitive terrain of trade liberalisation.

The information that the OAS now places at our disposal can be a source of power that will assist us immensely on this mission.

Let us use that power to its fullest potency.

I thank the OAS for this very timely intervention in our development process.

Thank you.

God bless you all.