Notes on Globalization
Bahamas Youth Council
Ministry of Education Building
Nassau, The Bahamas

22nd May 2008

When I was foreign minister, I attended two Summits of the Americas.  This is the body of heads of government that shepherds the process of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas or FTAA.

The last summit was in Mar del Plata in Argentina.  There was a fierce contest between the Venezuelans and the Americans, which the Americans won, to keep the FTAA process alive.

That process, which survived the formal vote, is now moribund because of disputes largely between Brazil and the United States over agricultural subsidies.

But I agreed with the Americans on one thing; we needed to commit to making it easier for people to go into business in our respective countries.  I remember some unsourced figures that suggested that in Canada it took 7 days to go into business, in the US 3 days in the Bahamas 6 months.  I can’t speak for the U.S and Canada but do know that The Bahamas takes a long time and I think 6 months is generous.

I think when you say ‘going into business’ this includes a building, rent, telephone, water, electricity, banking decisions, cable and Internet, licence including NIB.  The Bahamas is a nightmare.  When starting up a business in this country, just when you think that you have conquered one obstacle another looms in your way.

I spoke to a banker about the speed with which they were making a decision on a facility request.  I was of course who I was.  In my position, I could call someone and I was infuriated by the delays.  Imagine then what the ordinary person must go through in this society to get started in business.

It is a bureaucratic nightmare, in which the citizen who is trying to get started is essentially treated like a criminal.  There should be no wonder then that some people just set up on the side of the street without a licence or permit and simply start selling.

I use the example of the Summit of the Americas process - and the next one will be held in Trinidad and Tobago - to show my feeling that small societies often need outside pressure to change for their own betterment.

Left to itself, a small society like ours will simply be content like the frog in the warming water to sit there in apparent comfort while not knowing that they are being boiled and will die.

That is why I have embraced personally the idea of the Bahamian integration into the world economy.  It can only do us good, if we skillfully manage the process.  Some people are still saying no to everything that smacks of change but whether they like it or not, change is coming.

As a politician, I absolutely reject the notion that public policy should be driven by sticking one’s finger into the wind and then deciding to go in the direction of the wind.

The Bahamas started out as a colony.  This means that it was the outpost of another metropole, created to provide raw materials and goods and a captive market of supply and demand for that metropolitan market.  At one point, The Bahamas offered a preferential rate for goods from Commonwealth countries in our customs duty rate, no doubt a reward for being part of an empire.

So, international agreements governing trade and globalization should not be matters to fear in this country.  We have already been part of the global movement of goods and services.

What has happened, it appears to me over the last decade or so, is that a misplaced understanding or embrace of the policy of Bahamianization seems now to suggest to some that one can shut the doors to the outside world and The Bahamas can stand alone.

We have rejected our Caribbean neighbours and their trade agreement, which would have protected us from more powerful economies as we integrated more fully into the world community.  Yet we have now embraced another agreement the Economic Partnership Agreements with supranational bodies that will determine our way of trade and ultimately our way of life, far more displacing than the Caricom treaty.

I fear none of it.  I embrace it. It all has to do with the management of it.

It is clear for example that our integration into the world economy will have the benefit of greater access to capital, less parochialism in public policy decisions, and the rise of a meritocracy.  Less of ‘who you know’ and more of what you know.

It is clear that we need an anti monopolies policy which will not come without outside pressure.

It is clear that there needs to be free movement of capital.

The free movement of capital would benefit Bahamians where capital is in short supply and often determined by who you know and not what you know.

There are clearly times when a government needs to intervene to protect the public interest. It is clear it has a role to play in setting and regulating standards.  It has a clear role in defence and internal security.  When the economy is down, it has a role in priming the pump. What it should not do, is stop people from going into business in the shortest period of time.