Dix­ie Ann Dick­son

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an wants the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors to re-ex­am­ine the ca­pa­bil­i­ties to pro­vide fi­nan­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties to young en­tre­pre­neurs. Speak­ing yes­ter­day at Com­mon­wealth Day cel­e­bra­tions at the Ban­quet and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, Movie Towne, Dook­er­an said he made a sim­i­lar call last week at a Unit­ed Na­tions con­fer­ence on Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment.

He said fi­nan­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple has al­ways been a ma­jor ob­sta­cle to their de­vel­op­ment and with sev­er­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions op­er­at­ing in T&T and the Caribbean much more must be done.Cit­ing a re­cent World Bank re­port on Caribbean de­vel­op­ment, Dook­er­an said: "The fi­nan­cial sec­tor has to­tal as­sets of 350 per cent of gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP) re­gion­al­ly, while the bank­ing sec­tor alone has as as­set base near to 150 per cent GDP. "

Giv­en these strong fig­ures, he went on: "The first step in es­tab­lish­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for the young pop­u­la­tion and en­tre­pre­neur­ship in T&T lies in the fi­nan­cial sec­tor pro­vid­ing ac­cess to fund­ing."I make a strong call for us to have a re-look at the ca­pa­bil­i­ty of the fi­nan­cial sec­tor to de­liv­er fi­nan­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties for en­tre­pre­neur­ship and young en­tre­pre­neurs. There must be av­enues, which can be ac­cept­ed for fi­nanc­ing at risk that is ac­cept­able for those young en­tre­pre­neurs."

Dook­er­an said more than 60 per cent of the Com­mon­wealth pop­u­la­tion is made up of young peo­ple and there is an of­fi­cial pledge to in­vest in youth and en­tre­pre­neur­ship. He said that was the rea­son this year's Com­mon­wealth cel­e­bra­tion had the theme Op­por­tu­ni­ty through En­ter­prise: Un­lock­ing Po­ten­tial with In­no­va­tion and Ex­cel­lence.He said the role of en­tre­pre­neur­ship in eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment is be­com­ing a greater fo­cus and the World Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum which has in­di­cat­ed that a coun­try's abil­i­ty to com­pete glob­al­ly de­pends large­ly on the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of its peo­ple and the youth in par­tic­u­lar.

"In this re­gard, T&T is pur­su­ing a num­ber of ini­tia­tives based on the premise that the State must cre­ate that en­vi­ron­ment and con­tin­ue to be the cat­a­lyst for en­tre­pre­neur­ship de­vel­op­ment," said the min­is­ter who al­so un­der­scored the need for oth­er ini­tia­tives to boost trade and busi­ness.Dook­er­an said he hoped with the many en­deav­ours the Com­mon­wealth has em­barked on, such as the Hub and Spokes project, they would sup­port the call for more fi­nan­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties for young en­tre­pre­neurs.

The Hub and Spoke pro­gramme is geared to­ward build­ing ca­pac­i­ty in trade and pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment, ne­go­ti­a­tion and net­work­ing, which would as­sist for­eign coun­tries with small­er economies to en­ter glob­al mar­kets.To mark this year's cel­e­bra­tion there is a Com­mon­wealth Youth pro­gramme which seeks to pro­vide young peo­ple with op­por­tu­ni­ties to achieve their goals through the cre­ation and sup­port of con­di­tions which en­able youth em­pow­er­ment. The pro­gramme in­cludes the Com­mon­wealth Youth Cred­it Ini­tia­tive, Com­mon­wealth Fi­nan­cial Lit­er­a­cy and Com­mon­wealth Plan of Ac­tion for Youth Em­pow­er­ment 2007-2015.

Dook­er­an said the new Com­mon­wealth char­ter is tak­ing on a new trans­for­ma­tion, which is good and im­por­tant "as it recog­nis­es that we are in a pe­ri­od of eco­nom­ic change and po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences" and is po­si­tion­ing it­self to ad­dress con­tem­po­rary chal­lenges.British High Com­mis­sion­er Arthur Snell, who spoke on be­half of Her Majesty Queen Eliz­a­beth II, en­cour­aged young peo­ple to fol­low through on their dreams, be coura­geous and ven­ture out to the un­known be­cause every­one is born with the po­ten­tial to learn.