Economist Calls for Caribbean economic integration

A local economist yesterday argued that governments of the region had fallen back on their contribution to Caribbean economic integration in the last 30 years, leaving the business community to take up the slack. Speaking at the Crowne Plaza Hotel during an executive forum on the management of information to achieve global success, Dr Terrence Farrell, executive director of  technology and new business expansion at Guardian Holdings Ltd, described the implementation of integration issues within the Caribbean community during the last few years as “appalling.” He was highly skeptical about what he called the “top-down” approach taken to integration over the last 30 years, which has placed power in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians.

Instead, he said, hope lay in the “bottom-down” approach on the part of the business community with companies stepping out of their respective territories into others to conduct business. “This,” he said, “is the process that is going to ferment and foster Caribbean economic integration. However, there are still some things that our governments and our politicians can do.” Dr Farrell also called for the removal of bureaucratic obstacles which currently prevented the free movement of people and services among territories, and stressed the need for a “harmonisation” of statutes and regulations among countries in the region. He said, “It does not make sense that if I am in banking or insurance I have to deal with a number of regulators every time I want to set up a bank or branch of an insurance company in a Caribbean territory. This does not make sense.”

Instead, he asserted, the Caribbean should follow the example of the European Union which has abolished this practice, thus allowing companies to move throughout the respective countries in the Union, with all employees receiving the same benefits. “This is what we need to be doing here in the Caribbean if we are going to get serious,” he stated.  From a global perspective, Dr Farrell explained that, at present, businesses are operating in an uncertain and high risk environment, which is still recovering from the effects of September 11, 2001.

A rise in fundamentalists movements; specifically capitalist fundamentalism; continuing conflict in the Middle East and a rising AIDS epidemic in Sub Saharan Africa and India have made the business environment more complicated and fraught than it was a decade ago, he maintained. Additionally, business people are also facing a situation of increased competition which has led to concerns about whether or not companies, particularly financial service organisations have the capacity and capability to manage risk. He said, “Sometimes you don’t see the perfect storm, the events which appear to be different, coming together from different directions to eventually create something seismic for your organisation. “This is what organisations need to be concerned about.”