A move by puny Caribbean island Antigua and Barbuda to get the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to refer the United States to a dispute panel over Internet Gambling is being compared to the ancient biblical battle of David and Goliath. In that contest of will, David slewed the giant Goliath with a rudimentary sling-shot. Whether Antigua and Barbuda will end up like David, countries worldwide are taking a keen interest in the battle as not many WTO members, far less, a small island developing state have shown courage in taking on the US. The European Union, Taipei, Canada, Mexico and Japan among others have expressed third party interest in the dispute.

“Before Antigua, they were not prepared to go forward but now that Antigua has gone forward showing our feelings that we have a right to go against the US — all these other countries are now coming on board,” said Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister Lester Bird.
“In fact it is a great victory for Antigua and Barbuda to be able to get the WTO to agree that the US must answer the charges,” he said.
The WTO last month appointed a three man panel with B K Zuthshi of India as Chairman. The other two panellists are Virachai Plasai of Thailand and Richard Plender QC of the United Kingdom. Antigua and Barbuda’s Chief Foreign Affairs representative Sir Ron Saunders requested WTO Director-General Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi to appoint the Panel after talks with the US failed to agree on its composition. The Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of the WTO authorised the establishment of a Panel to hear Antigua and Barbuda’s complaint after the country presented its case.

Antigua and Barbuda contends that a US ban on the cross-border supply of gaming and betting services from the island to the US violates US commitments under the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS) which seeks to create equal conditions of competition for domestic and foreign service suppliers. By blocking credit card transactions and penalising credit card companies and banks that facilitate transactions to the island, the US action has had a punishing effect on the industry in Antigua and Barbuda. The US has also suggested that organised criminals could abuse Internet gaming for money laundering and other criminal purposes. “We painstakingly pointed out that the way in which the industry operates, and is regulated, makes it impossible for such activities since the  operators could only accept funds by transfers which are traceable, and that winnings could only be paid to the accounts and addresses from which punters send money in the first place,” he said.

Under Antigua’s comprehensive regulatory framework that governs the activities of gaming companies checks are placed on the fairness of gaming systems; companies are required to identify and prohibit pathological gambling and they must enforce stringent “Know Your Customer” verification procedures. In addition, companies are required to maintain comprehensive records relating to all gaming and all financial transactions of each customer for a period of not less than six years. A third point raised by the US was that cross-border gambling and betting services are prohibited under US law “from domestic and foreign service suppliers alike.” “We pointed out that a ban on the cross-border supply of services has a very different effect depending on whether you are inside or outside the borders of the United States. “The GATS seeks to create equal conditions of competition for domestic and foreign service suppliers. In this context, we made the point that it is  not a reasonable argument to contend that a measure prohibiting cross-border supply has an equal effect on foreign and domestic service suppliers,” said the Senior Foreign Ministry Official.
“After all, the US domestic service suppliers are not crossing any borders when they supply the US market to the exclusion of others who are outside US borders.”

In its fourth submission, the US also flatly stated that cross-border gambling and betting services are not within the scope of the specific market access commitments that it made under the GATS. “The US made no attempt to substantiate this assertion. It was flatly made on a take-it or leave-it basis. It is important to note that in simply relying on its flat assertion that, in its view, cross border gambling and betting services are not within the scope of the market access commitments it made under the GATS, the US is trying to apply an amazing double standard,” Sir Ron asserted.
Since the WTO’s dispute machinery came into force in 1995, the US has been its most frequent user, haven taken 75 disputes to the DSB in which it was the complainant.

Small Caribbean countries were also targetted when the US threw its support behind a 1995 complaint by Chiquita, the world’s major banana company that the EU banana regime put its business in Europe at a disadvantage. The WTO concluded that elements of the regime were inconsistent with the GATT, devastating many of the islands that depended on the EU’s preferential treatment for their fruit. In many of Windward Islands, bananas previously made up for over half of total exports while the banana industry provided employment for one-third of the population.

Caribbean sugar producers are also facing another threat, this time from three major countries Australia, Brazil and Thailand over the EU’s sugar regime for the African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) countries. As Sir Ron was apt to say, what is good for the goose, is also good for the gander.

Up to 1999, Antigua and Barbuda was said to be the largest gaming jurisdiction in the world with over 112 online gaming operators. Now there are only 31 licensed companies in operation. The industry previously employed about 5,000 people. That has now fallen to below 500. The island estimates that since 1999, government has lost US$33.3 million in licence fees and over US$37 million in wages and salaries as the number of Internet gaming entities were forced out of business by US actions. Questioning the motive behind the US position in prohibiting the delivery of Internet gaming into the US from countries outside, Sir Ron said Internet Gaming challenges the supremacy of large American owned casinos that are fast becoming multinationals.

“There is a view that if a gambler has a choice of placing bets or gambling in the ease of his own home, he is more likely to do so than to incur the cost and spend the time involved in going to a casino or a betting shop. “It is understandable, therefore, why some may believe that the blanket ban on Internet Gaming is motivated by lobbies persuading US congressmen and senators to protect US casinos from competition,” said Antigua and Barbuda’s chief negotiator at the WTO. The trade association of American gaming companies estimate that total consumer spending in commercial casinos in the United States reached almost US$26 billion in 2001.

At the first hearing of the complaint by Antigua and Barbuda at the DSB, the US claimed that they had “grave concerns over the financial and social risks posed by Internet gaming activities to its citizens, particularly but not exclusively children.” But Antigua and Barbuda said it had made it clear to the US prior to the DSB hearing that the Internet gaming industry in Antigua is highly regulated and children have no access to it. “ We emphasised that gamblers are required to deposit funds before they can bet. To do so, they have to send a wire transfer from their bank accounts and provide their social security number, address and other means of identification. These strictly enforced rules make it impossible for children to gain access to the Internet gaming operations,” said Sir Ron.

International garment consultant, Peter Wilson, takes a dim view of Trinidad and Tobago’s garment industry which he describes as “lifestyle companies.” “The owners of these businesses are there to provide a lifestyle for themselves and their families and not to develop and keep the business going,” he said in a recent interview. “Once they have a nice motorcar and a house that they are comfortable with and some spending money in their pockets, they are happy,” he said. Business people, he said,  are not really interested in investing in their employees or equipment in order for the company or the industry to expand and grow.

“Give them and their families a lifestyle that they are comfortable with and once they have achieved that, the motivation to expand the business tends to drop,” he said. Companies, he warned,  have to start taking stock of themselves if they want to compete in the upcoming Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). He said those that do not have the sales and marketing capabilities and good niche markets for themselves run the risk of being put out of business. A leading international consultant in the garment manufacturing industry, Wilson is an industrial engineer by training. He has spent most of his life working in garment industries around the world, including  India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China and Syria. He was in TT recently doing some work for a few local garment manufacturing companies with the aim of trying to improve their productivity, competitiveness and overall business performance.

While here, he visited several companies and found at least five of them wanting. In a recent interview Wilson was critical, saying that the local manufacturing industry has to improve in order to compete with other markets around the world. He said the government and other stakeholders did not express much interest in the industry, noting that  this was probably because it is so small and only employs about 3,000 people. His guess is that there is a lack of interest because it does not contribute much to the country’s foreign exchange earnings. Wilson added that most of the large garment manufacturing countries like Sri Lanka; Thailand; Pakistan; Bangladesh; India and Nepal now employ about 100,000 people in their industries.
Successful garment manufacturing companies, he said, are those that develop strong businesses, generate profits to re-invest and have partnership or joint venture partnership arrangements.

He noted that in TT, the industry is not low-cost like in China or India, but he said this should not be used as an excuse not to expand or develop the business. “There is always going to be the opportunity for some of the local companies to find a niche market, which is not based on price. You cannot always base your production strategy on price alone because there will always be somebody cheaper,” he said advising that partnership was the way forward if one wanted to survive in this industry. He cited Marks and Spencer, noting they developed a partnership about 50 years ago with a manufacturing supply base. He said as far as he was aware there were only two local companies in the industry which have niche markets in the custom design and uniform markets. “There is a big market in the Caribbean right now to keep them both very busy. They use all the information technology, website interfaces and they can develop a huge competitive advantage between themselves or against their competitors by using technology,” he said.

On cheaper imports, Wilson said they would always be around, and as far as he is concerned, none of the local garment companies are “professional” enough to advance themselves. “They are making lower value garments like T-shirts and jeans. These are commodity products and will fetch commodity prices.” He said the local companies are always going to be faced with cheaper imports from China and India, because the investments that goes into primary textile production in those countries is enormous. Wilson said while government subsidies could help those companies educate their staff and update their technology, they would still need to invest in sales, marketing and product development and design initiatives.
“There is absolutely no point trying to develop the T-shirt manufacturing industry to be more competitive and productive because they will never be able to compete with prices and products from China,” he said. The same goes for shirts. Locally-made shirts will suffer badly from imports because this is a garment that can be engineered efficiently, he said.
 
Wilson said unless these companies find niche markets and re-invent themselves, they will never be able to compete. He said  they use equipment that is almost 25-years old and have high labour and utility costs. Labour, he added is just a small part of the overall fixed costs. Wilson added that if TT wants to be an apparel-exporting nation, it is going to have to look beyond the Caribbean to export its products. However, he said these local manufacturers also have a problem making deliveries on time, and are often behind on production. “If these local manufacturers were in the fashion industry, they would be dead in the water by now.”

Additionally he said there is very little use of  information technology and computerisation. “There is no production planning, no quality assurance, no stock control or anything else as far as I have seen,” he said. Wilson said if these companies want to be successful in a competitive market, they have to start improving their sales and marketing capabilities. “They have to visit the market to find out what people want. You have to go to fabric fairs to find out what are the latest colour trends, textures and fabrics. If they want to be successful these are the things that must be done.”

RBTT was awarded The Banker Award 2003 at the most prestigious event in the banking calendar held at the Dorchester Hotel in London on September 9, 2003. Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, RBTT Bank Jamaica, Amrit Sinanan was in London to receive the award presented by Stephen Timewell, Editor-in-Chief of The Banker magazine. This illustrious award was presented to RBTT in Trinidad and Tobago in 2001 and 2002, and to RBTT Bank Jamaica in 2003.

Congratulating RBTT on its success, Timewell said, “RBTT, a Caribbean powerhouse has won the award again this year because of its continued impressive growth and profitability and its restructuring efforts. During the year, it brought its nine banks and 79 branches in 11 jurisdictions under the RBTT brand name, giving it considerable market advantage. RBTT is among the top three banks in each of the jurisdictions where it does business.” Peter July, RBTT Group Chairman said, “We have built a strong franchise across the Caribbean, reflected in the asset size of the group and are committed to pursuing attractive opportunities to expand regionally and extra regionally.” The Banker, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Financial Times, is one of the international financial and corporate world’s most respected magazines.