‘SCALE UP PRODUCTION’

BARBADOS’ Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Sandra Husbands, is banking on stepped up production to boost manufactured exports at a time when this country and the wider region need that.

She spoke at the virtual launch of the CARICOM Manufacturers’ Association (CMA), with some lofty aims to boost exports and economic improvements.

Husbands lamented the fact that having signed bilateral agreements with extra-regional trading partners, CARICOM countries were not seeing significant benefits from those arrangements.

According to her, governments in the region will have to create the enabling environment to boost the performance of that segment of export thrust.

However, the region needs to scale up production to benefit more from the bilateral agreements these countries have signed.

Just weeks ago, Mrs. Pamela Coke-Hamilton had said as much while insisting that CARICOM countries need to work similar agreements to maximise their full potential. Mrs. Coke-Hamilton, who is the Director of the International Trade Centre in Geneva, Switzerland, said it therefore made no sense agreeing to new bilateral treaties when CARICOM is not seeing the full benefits.

The CARIFORUM-European Union Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) is one such instance where the majority of the Caribbean countries have been slow in accessing the generous provisions which Europe has granted in the EPA.

Ms. Husbands was one of the speakers at the recently launched CARICOM Manufacturers’ Association comprising manufacturing bodies from Barbados, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago.

She said that production is key if regional trade is to increase and that scaled up production will help Barbados and the region to build prosperity to deal with competitive products coming from extra-regional sources.

The Barbados minister also drew attention to a recent decision by some Asian countries to create a free trade area while urging the Caribbean not to be left behind.