Business
Caribbean China forum is beneficial for all
When the third China – Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum is held in Trinidad and Tobago next week, regional leaders hoping to further cement the Caribbean as a destination of choice for Chinese FDI.
The Caribbean-China Economic and Trade Cooperation forum will be held on September 12 and 13, and will be attended by ministers from China and nine Countries: Jamaica, Grenada, Dominica, Barbados, Cuba, the Bahamas, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago.
Businesses and entrepreneurs from the region and China will also participate in the Forum.
The China Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum is the highest level of economic and trade dialogue mechanism between the two sides, whose mission is to facilitate trade and economic cooperation for common development. The first two Forums were successfully concluded in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica in February 2005 and in Xiamen, China in September 2007.
According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC), China was the third largest Latin America and the Caribbean direct investor, accounting for 9% of FDI in the region, and the value of China’s trade with the Caribbean and Latin America approaching US$156 billion.
After assessing the performance of these relationships over a ten-year period, the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) stated that results indicated that high trade costs were curtailing business opportunities between China and the region. The IDB went on to make a recommendation that policymakers should join forces to cut tariffs, transportation costs and other barriers to diversify the composition of the bilateral trade between China and the region.
ECLAC noted that, in the medium term, it expected China’s multinational corporations would continue to invest funds in the region, especially in the areas of infrastructure and manufacturing.
Source: Caribbean360
Barbados Minister of Finance Christopher Sinckler has stated that he expects the Forum in Trinidad to provide an opportunity for evaluating the progress of the 2007 pledge by the Chinese government that it would be spending in excess of BDS$1 billion in investments in the Caribbean, region-wide in several areas, including technical support in terms of inputs for infrastructural projects.
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