It’s a hard world for Caribbean
A critical observer looking at the relations between the major countries of this world and the Caribbean might easily be forgiven if he came to the realisation that the region is under some kind of attack from its professed friends. These islands are small, open and vulnerable economies, lacking more often than not, the substantial foundations of large mineral and other resources which are so prominent a feature of their more prosperous brothers mainly to the North. Agriculture, tourism and now financial services therefore constitute new, and in some cases fledgling supports for regional economies. It is therefore not easy to understand the recent attacks by other countries upon two of these economic planks given the professed understanding of our bigger friends of the economic realties in the region. Earlier this year, for example, we received the ruling of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on the preferential treatment of the region’s exports by the European countries under the LOME trade agreements. As we now know the WTO ruled that the preferential trade regime is contrary to its rules. As if this was not enough, we now have a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation in Development (OECD) questioning the cooperation of tax regimes in the Caribbean which they regard as harmful. The OECD which appears to have arrogated to itself the role of guardian of the world’s tax system is now suggesting that pressure should be placed on these “errant” countries to dismantle their offshore tax systems which have been established, not to enhance illicit dealings in money, but to add some support to the fledgling economies in the region. It does not take an economic guru to recognise the social dislocation and enormous hardship which would ensue if the offshore financial sector and the banana crops were both removed from regional economies. The region is therefore taking a step in the right direction when it seeks to sensitize metropolitan countries about the importance of the banana agriculture and the offshore money industry to Caribbean islands. We support the most recent initiative of the CARICOM Summit to establish a special committee to examine the question of the so-called harmful tax regimes in the region. No stone must be left unturned by the region in its quest to demonstrate that money as a business, is now a developed industry in the major capitals of the world and that it is possible for small Caribbean territories to operate financial centres, which are as clean and in many respects cleaner than those operated in some of the world’s major capitals.
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