Use the Caribbean Trade Centre

THE Caribbean Trade Centre (CTC) of the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce could be utilised to build a strategy to put the region in a stronger position for negotiating.

Councillor Dr. Mathieu Eugene, of the New York City Council, said the New York-based facility, which provides business assistance to small and start-up business owners – in areas of business planning, financing, procurement, certification, expansion, and export/import opportunities, should be used as an asset for the region and the diaspora.

“This is the moment to open the doors to all the Caribbean countries. We can use the Caribbean Trade Centre to start organising, start building a strategy, a plan to put ourselves in a position to negotiate,” he said during a recent Caribbean Tourism Organisation webinar.

The Haitian-born official stated now was the time to evaluate tourism by conducting a survey of what is tourism in the Caribbean now with the COVID pandemic, what it was before, and what is going to be after COVID.

“And we’ve got to start thinking about our resources, what we have to ensure that we maintain the tourism in the Caribbean countries, and to make sure we can attract people to come to spend the money to boost our economy,” he added.

Telling his fellow political colleagues from within the diaspora they must be advocates and ambassadors for the region, encouraging persons to visit here, he said the relationship between the diaspora and the region must be made stronger through business and financial linkages.

“We already have a fairly strong relationship with the Caribbean community, and also Caribbean countries. So what we have to do, we have to tie it in this relationship.

New York City, for example, we are powerful. We have internal resources, we have skills and the expertise. What we have to do, we have to come together and try to figure out how we are going to empower ourselves and get a bigger presence, not only in politics, but in business and financial power,” he said.