The View from Europe
  By David Jessop
   
  Lancaster House in London has an important place in Caribbean history. It is the ornate eighteenth century building at which the conferences that led to the region’s political independence took place. 
   
  On November 2 it played host to an event that resonated with its history. This involved some two hundred invitees from the Caribbean, Europe and further afield participating in a debate about the type of economy required independence when preferential arrangements no longer exist.
   
  Between the 1950s and 1980s all English speaking Caribbean nations bar the smallest, proceeded to independence. As a part of the final settlement, preferential trade arrangements and financial assistance were agreed. For the most part these arrangements were transferred from the UK to the European Union from the 1970s onwards. More recently Europe established new strategic and economic priorities that seek to level all of its trade arrangements. 
   
  The November Lancaster House conference was intended to focus minds on the implications this has and the need to mobilise the investment necessary to transform Caribbean economies that are still partially dependent upon special trade arrangements and make viable the Caribbean Single Market and Economy.  
   
  The event took place at the initiative of Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, with the active encouragement of Caribbean leaders such as Prime Minister Arthur of Barbados, President Jagdeo of Guyana and Prime Minister Musa of Belize, all of whom were present. 
   
  By far the majority of participants were from the private sector in the region and Europe. This was because the conference proceeded from two broad premises. The first was that investment and a vibrant private sector were central to the success of the CSME and the second was that within Caricom, Governments now had to act as enablers rather than as directors of change.
   
  The conference sought to identify common responses to what Tony Blair described as the unavoidable economic challenges facing the region. In what may have been the first post-colonial public address on the Caribbean by a British Prime Minister, he made clear that he and his government would do all that it could to help encourage investment that focussed on the region’s strengths. 
   
  Prime Minister Arthur noted the Caribbean had reached an irrevocable turning point in its history and had to make a rapid and substantial structural adjustment. Despite this, he observed, there was no consensus in the region on the intellectual and psychological response to these new realities. What was required, he suggested was a dramatic change in outlook, thinking and language by politicians, the private sector, the academic community and civil society if the region was to function in the new global society. 
   
  Responding to these challenges the conference tried to provide to all present a vision of where the Caribbean might be in 2020. It considered the steps that nations such as New Zealand had taken in order to engineer radical economic restructuring and the options that might exist in the Caribbean for private investment flows for financing the development of both the social and business sectors. Later the discussions turned to the role of tourism in development, the expansion of the services sector including how it might support the regions education, health and other social needs, and the creation of a new agricultural economy.
   
  In all these senses, the conference was about change and how those now best able to underwrite it, the private sector in the region and elsewhere, might interact with Government to play the developmental role that once was solely the province of the state.
   
  Did it succeed?
   
  While time will be the judge and it is not easy to suggest any one single measure of success, some first observations are possible. 
   
  Firstly there was a real sense that Caribbean thinking had changed. The private and public sector representatives present had crossed the border from the geography of nowhere to a new understanding. The solutions lay in their hands; follow up was for the region to deliver; a new and viable Caribbean economy could be created on the basis of new public/private relationships. No one present argued for the past.
   
  Secondly as Barbados’ Minister of Commerce, Consumer Affairs and Business Development, Senator Lynette Eastmond, made clear, growth in the services sector was not an alternative to having modern agricultural and manufacturing sectors but an addition. Governments, academia and the business community shared the responsibility of delivering the efficiencies necessary for services sector growth.  
   
  Next the tourism sector came across very aggressively as the industry that wanted to be the future of the region. Its public and private sector representatives suggested that the competition they would provide and their desire for an industry better integrated with other economic sectors would drive a significant part of the regions future economic development. There was also a sense that their focus on competition with other sectors would drive thinking and the development of other sectors.
   
  Some important changes in perception about agriculture occurred. All accepted the Caribbean needed a vibrant and viable agricultural sector. Because those involved in Guyana, Belize and Jamaica believed that viably adapted agriculture and fisheries, including bananas and sugar, had a future, their annoyance with some of the comments from the services sector caused them to think about how to reposition themselves. There were corridor discussions about how agriculture dependent economies might develop ad promote in the region a case for a new Caribbean agricultural model
   
  Fifth the investors and analysts present were mostly quiet and in listening mode,  expressing in private doubts about the region’s size, economic coherence and the extent to which viable opportunities were available for large scale investment. Some noted that the Caribbean’s most successful companies had largely succeeded by investing outside of the region and suggested that while there were clearly some significant onshore opportunities, they remained to be convinced. 
   
  Despite this, President Jagdeo and a number of the Caribbean private sector financial institutions present reported serious conversations with a range of investors and the development of plans for the promotion of national opportunities. It also became clear that a number of regional banks, possibly working in conjunction with larger entities in Europe and the US, were likely to seek to more aggressively position themselves across the region.
   
  Most but not all participants found the event useful. Almost all of those who attended were not only aware of the need for change but were in their own ways operating in areas that represented the future.  The participants who had difficulty with the conference seemed to be those who had not accepted a changed role for Government and worried that there were not more representatives of Caribbean Governments present. 
   
  Recognising the need for change is a key precursor to change itself. Most of those attending from the region came with positive perceptions about the future. The value of the conference was that it catalysed ideas that were latent and provided a basis for introductions to new opportunities. 
   
  David Jessop is the Director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at [log in to unmask]
  Previous columns can be found at www.caribbean-council.org
  November 10th, 2006
   

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