St. Vincent and the Grenadines will have a national export strategy by December 2019. The project has been in the pipeline since 2004, however, could not take off until now, due to lack of funding.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Commerce officially launched the consultancy to develop this country’s national export strategy late last month.
Director of Trade Okolo John-Patrick, in welcoming participants, said she was happy to see so many persons at the launch.
John-Patrick said the Trade Department has been trying to get the strategy at this final stage for a while and that they are excited to have a launch.
She expressed hope that it “will proceed quickly and successfully”, adding that the consultants will be in SVG until Aug. 9, 2019 and will present the final document in December.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Commerce Sandy Peters-Phillips expressed pleasure to be at the launch of the national export strategy. Peters-Phillips said the strategy is a symbol of government’s commitment to businesses, and “civil society to use trade as a tool to create economic opportunities for a young and growing population, using trade as a means to achieve sustainable economic growth that will assist in the changing in our external trade position”.
She said the export strategy will include an analysis of this country’s trade performance, and help to reduce the cost of doing business, and, among others, promote SVG as a business partner of choice.
Team leader and EU Delegate Andrea Serpagli urged participants to actively participate in the consultancy, emphasising that their collaboration and support are of utmost importance.
He noted that participants will be able to identify present constraints and gaps in the system, and point out solutions. The document is a tool to “support the private sector in St. Vincent and the Grenadines to export better and more,” Serpagli stated.The other consultant on the national export strategy for SVG is Michael Seepersaud.
Better late than never, but one has to ask, after nearly twenty years in office, why only now? Is this to be yet another one of those pre-election gimmick just like that FREEDOM OF INFORMATION BILL? Are we about to stop begging foreign governments for our upkeep? Has this family run government suddenly woken up to the benefits of Work and the Export Trade? Will “a leopard ever changes its spots”?
How much can an export strategy for SVG cost to research and put in place. After all we have just about nothing to export. I could have completed this in a week and have written reports and a written strategy by the end of that week. I would have done that pro-bono, like our national hero Grant Connell.
We have no new manufacturers, those that we had left when they realised what we had elected. Other manufacturing investors slunk away frightened that SVG may adopt the Venezuelan strategy of grabbing all private industry. Investing in SVG is just not worth the risk, not before, not now, and not in a ULP ruled future.
We must also remember endemic skulduggery doesn’t help our image either.
I was in Grenada last week, the industry there, the manufacturing units are most impressive. There are hundreds of them, all working like crazy.
Remember under the capitalist system each privately owned company is responsible for their own export strategies. Under a communist system its the state that requires the strategy.
Unlike the dreaming Communist/Pseudo-Socialist in SVG Jolly Green, we all know, that there are never Governments money. Money for government spending comes to governments by way of Taxes or if you are a government like the one we have here in SVG, it would also come by way of begging for Grant-Aid, handouts by the very Capitalist governments that our pseudo-socialist so love to berate.
Corporate Tax moneys comes from successful companies and successful companies also pay wages to their employees who also pay taxes to Government. Hence these pseudo-socialist can never get it into their foolish heads that there are never any Government moneys but rather Corporate and individual moneys, paid to government by way of Taxes.
This family regime here in SVG, supported by its ideologues, over the number of years that they have been in power, have destroyed the very base upon which our ordinary society should function because of their nepotistic actions and compounded the destruction of the nation wealth creation base, through their crony capitalistic practises. Indeed, we have now just a handful manufacturers, few exporters and import taxes that are eye wateringly high!
Therefore we see that few companies results in little corporation Taxes and few jobs. Too few jobs results in very few wage earners, all this resulting in a high tax burden on what little commercial activity that remains in the country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSjlGNaWPbc
Sadly for us however, the examples of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela or the now defunct Soviet Union have not resonated with the ideologues of the ULP who holds Karl Marx as their hero. Now they seek to save the world at the UN as the nation grows more and more jobless! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdfru9NHGvE
We must ask ourselves these questions. Why are so many individuals here in SVG out of work? Why is it that only mainly Government Jobs that are sometimes available? And where does the Government obtain its money to pay the wages to the people it employs?
To answer those questions, we must first ask, what kind of policies our Government have been pursuing over the years. How successful have they been in generating volumes of economic activity here that could employ individuals, produce wealth and pay taxes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3GfCmbPDN0
Then we can move on to ask, why is our democracy the same as that of North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba? In addition, why is Venezuela is in such a mess too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCIdm3cM6zQ
Business and economy
James, there is more opportunity here than ever before. There are still empty spaces on the sidewalks to set up your own street-vendor business. Street vendor is undeniably the largest employment sector in the country!
Jamal what SVG requires are manufacturers, those that hire substantial workforces.
Thank God for the vendors who are trying hard to support themselves and families. I doubt any of them create employment for others, or pay income tax.
What has happened the Children’s Clothes manufacturers and the Tennis Racquet manufacturing company, both previously at Camden Park pulled out of SVG when this pretend labour party came to power under a pretend labour party leader. A huge manufacturer who wanted to put an assembly plant at Georgetown dropped the idea when the ULP under the leadership of Ralph Gonsalves were re-elected.
Most investors that come to SVG under the ULP are not fit to call our partners in industry. Most have proven to be failures and crooks. Accepting fifth rate investors whilst failing to carry out proper investigation into the persons involved have in the past brought SVG a bad name. They come and they go, William Wise [banking], Dave Ames [resort owner and tourism], just to mention a couple.
No decent investor will touch SVG under a ULP Ralph Gonsalves government due to the association with Cuba and Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, Russia, and a whole host of such nasty regimes.
SVG has become a prostituted State whose main income is derived from scrounging from those States more affluent than us who want voting favours from us at the UN.