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Thursday, July 3, 2025

ACS to bring e-regulations to greater Caribbean

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20120719

In pur­suit of a "grad­ual re­duc­tion and elim­i­na­tion of ob­sta­cles to trade and in­vest­ment in the greater Caribbean," the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States (ACS) will in­tro­duce UNC­TAD's e-reg­u­la­tions pro­gramme to its 28 mem­ber coun­tries, said ACS sec­re­tary gen­er­al Al­fon­so Munera. Munera said this in an in­ter­view on Ju­ly 11, at the ACS of­fice on Sweet Bri­ar Road, St Clair. UNC­TAD stands for the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­fer­ence on Trade and De­vel­op­ment. Munera said UNC­TAD's Nel­son Perez made a pre­sen­ta­tion to ACS mem­ber coun­tries at the as­so­ci­a­tion's Port-of-Spain head of­fice dur­ing the an­nu­al meet­ing of the ACS trade com­mit­tee on Ju­ly 11 to 12. In its plan of ac­tion for the com­ing year, the ACS trade com­mit­tee said it will "pro­mote ini­tia­tives aimed at re­duc­ing ob­sta­cles to trade in the re­gion" by in­tro­duc­ing the e-reg­u­la­tions pro­gramme. In coun­tries where it has been im­ple­ment­ed, the pro­gramme has led to "ex­pe­dit­ed visas, sim­pli­fi­ca­tion of im­port pro­ce­dures, and the es­tab­lish­ment of an elec­tron­ic con­sul­ta­tion sys­tem for ac­cess­ing in­for­ma­tion and im­port re­quire­ments."

In her re­port to the com­mit­tee, ACS trade di­rec­tor Ari­ad­na Perez said, "Among the most fun­da­men­tal ob­sta­cles to trade ex­pe­ri­enced by eco­nom­ic en­ti­ties of mem­ber states is the lack of knowl­edge re­gard­ing reg­u­la­tions and process­es to achieve their com­mer­cial pur­pos­es. The ac­cess or non-ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion de­ter­mines their ef­fec­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in the trade en­vi­ron­ment. "In the long run, every­thing hinges on the lev­el of trans­paren­cy of­fered by each coun­try to fa­cil­i­tate and/or pro­mote eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties linked to in­ter­na­tion­al trade. The lack of, or lim­it­ed in­for­ma­tion, then makes sim­ple ac­tiv­i­ties slug­gish, and there­fore cost­ly, in­creas­ing trans­ac­tion costs for those who con­duct the trans­ac­tions, for the end con­sumers, and for the econ­o­my in gen­er­al." E-reg­u­la­tions are very im­por­tant, Perez said. "You can put all your steps and all the re­quire­ments that need to be met for do­ing busi­ness in each coun­try. So it will pro­mote the trans­paren­cy and give the in­for­ma­tion to peo­ple out­side. If you are from Chi­na or Japan, you can go to the In­ter­net to see what it is you have to do in or­der to come to (or) open a busi­ness, for ex­am­ple, in Guatemala." She said on­ly six ACS coun­tries have this fa­cil­i­ty pro­mot­ed by UNC­TAD and "what will be great is if coun­tries from Cari­com are a part of this."

Greater busi­ness fo­rum

Al­so in its ac­tion plan, the ACS trade com­mit­tee in­tends to "pro­mote trade re­la­tions in the re­gion, through fo­rums in which the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty could ex­plore new op­por­tu­ni­ties for busi­ness." This is why, Munera said, the ACS plans to re­vive its an­nu­al busi­ness fo­rum. The last busi­ness fo­rum was held in 2010 in Carta­ge­na, Colom­bia. The Busi­ness Fo­rum of the Greater Caribbean, as it was known, brings to­geth­er the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors of the re­gion, at a fo­rum mix­ing trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion and di­rect busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. "The first busi­ness fo­rum was held in 2000," Perez said, "and it was a man­date of the heads of state, and this busi­ness fo­rum is very im­por­tant be­cause it was a tool for the small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es. Be­cause if you have an en­tre­pre­neur from Trinidad, and you bring here a fo­rum with oth­er peo­ple, from oth­er coun­tries-Latin Amer­i­ca or any oth­er coun­try from Cari­com-they can have match­mak­ing." Al­though a mem­ber coun­try has not yet of­fered to host the busi­ness fo­rum, the sec­re­tary gen­er­al was con­fi­dent the event will take place in the sec­ond half of 2013. "We are go­ing to make a ma­jor ef­fort for there to be re­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the whole Caribbean at this fo­rum, not on­ly of the big coun­tries," he said.

Women-led SMEs

The ACS al­so in­tends to "sup­port the growth and po­ten­tial of mi­cro and small en­ter­pris­es in the greater Caribbean, im­prove knowl­edge of their func­tion­ing in dif­fer­ent set­tings, and the con­straints they face," Perez said in her re­port. The trade di­rec­tor said the ACS "con­duct­ed pre­lim­i­nary re­search," the re­sults of which were pre­sent­ed at the 2011 meet­ing of the trade com­mit­tee. She said the re­search made a case for help­ing women in the re­gion be­cause of "the im­pact of the small and medi­um en­ter­prise (SME) sec­tor on women in so­ci­ety, es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to ac­cess to fi­nance, and their over­all con­tri­bu­tion to eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion." "As a sec­re­tary gen­er­al, I want to pro­pose a macro project deal­ing with women in small busi­ness, talk­ing about mi­cro cred­its, talk­ing about ca­pac­i­ta­tion, talk­ing about struc­tur­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tions, and al­so think­ing about the macro project in which we can pro­mote small busi­ness­es through­out the re­gion deal­ing with women in dif­fer­ent ac­tiv­i­ties: tourism, ser­vice in gen­er­al, pre­ven­tion of dis­as­ters, small in­dus­tries. It is a very am­bi­tious idea and we have start­ed work­ing and we are go­ing to put a lot of ef­fort to do that," Munera said. "Gen­der is not on­ly a fight to get em­pow­ered or not, it is al­so an eco­nom­ic prob­lem for the coun­tries be­cause some 35-40 per cent of small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es are run by women, who are very of­ten the heads of house­holds and have to pro­vide for their fam­i­lies," Perez said.

"With re­spect to tourism, which is the main ac­tiv­i­ty of prob­a­bly 80 per cent of Caribbean coun­tries, women have a very im­por­tant pres­ence in terms of small busi­ness. "For ex­am­ple, they are the ones deal­ing with hand­i­craft and sell­ing small sou­venirs, and I think if we are able to im­prove the con­di­tions of women do­ing small busi­ness, it will have a very im­por­tant so­cial im­pact be­cause at the end of the day, we are talk­ing about fight­ing pover­ty and we are talk­ing about rais­ing the con­di­tion of women," Munera said.

Ex­pert sup­port

Perez said ac­cord­ing to the ACS re­search, most women-owned busi­ness­es in the Caribbean are ei­ther mi­cro or small and very rarely medi­um-sized be­cause women's fo­cus is on the ed­u­ca­tion of their chil­dren and on the health of their fam­i­lies.

"A few women go be­yond that, but the ma­jor­i­ty are small. We are al­ready get­ting the sup­port of one of the im­por­tant part­ners," Munera said. "I have al­ready spo­ken with the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs of Colom­bia. Al­so, I have spo­ken to the Prime Min­is­ter of Haiti about this idea, and we are now at the point of get­ting, from Colom­bia, the sup­port to pay an ex­pert who is go­ing to help us to frame the project in a way in which we can present it. "Al­so, we are talk­ing with some in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions. I don't want to men­tion which ones specif­i­cal­ly be­cause we are still in the in­for­mal talk, but we are sure we are go­ing to get sup­port for hav­ing this project de­vel­oped. "My feel­ing is that we are work­ing in such a way that by the end of the year, or by the be­gin­ning of next year, we will have the project ready, and we have two or three dif­fer­ent coun­tries sup­port­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of this project." Munera and Perez spoke to the Busi­ness Guardian dur­ing a break at the meet­ing. The two-day meet­ing was chaired by Haiti's Min­is­ter of Trade Wil­son Laleau. UNC­TAD, the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States, the Latin Amer­i­can Eco­nom­ic Sys­tem, the Cen­tral Amer­i­can In­te­gra­tion Sys­tem, Cari­com and the In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Cen­tre were rep­re­sent­ed at the meet­ing.


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