The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government is seeking to further boost the manufacturing and trade economy by signing this nation on to the “broader concessions” offered by the US Caribbean Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA), a senior official yesterday indicating the move could increase the Bahamas’ $691 million annual exports to the US.

Viana Gardiner, the Bahamas’ acting director of trade and industry, said the Government was also viewing the CBTPA as another marketing tool to entice foreign investors, especially those in the manufacturing, assembly and distribution sectors, to do business in the Bahamas.

The CBTPA is different from the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), the one-way trade preferences programme under which Bahamian exports currently enter the US without incurring high tariffs.

Ms Gardiner said that by becoming a ‘beneficiary country’ under the CBTPA, the Bahamas would access a “broader range of concessions” than those currently available to its exporters - the likes of Polymers International and the crawfish industry - under the CBI.

She added that the CBTPA was more than just an agreement designed to benefit the apparel and textile industries, as some in the private sector had told Tribune Business, sectors in which this nation has little to no interest.

Ms Gardiner told Tribune Business that as a result of a meeting between US and CARICOM officials earlier this year, “it came to the Government’s attention” that the Bahamas was not designated by the US Trade Representative’s Office as a country designated to receive CBTPA benefits.

The US Trade Representative’s Office has now set a November 9, 2012, deadline to receive feedback on whether the Bahamas and other Caribbean nations should be added to the ranks of those receiving CBTPA preferences.

“There are certain countries that did not go through the process. It has the potential of being beneficial for us through the concessions being offered,” Ms Gardiner told Tribune Business.

“The Government took a decision to seek to benefit from the broader concessions offered under CBTPA.

“We’ve taken the necessary steps, which was to indicate our interest to the US, and now we’re waiting for them to come back with their response. We anticipate a positive one.”

And she added: “Once we have that, we’d seek to encourage businesses to take advantage of the wider benefits under that Act, and identify to international companies looking to do business throughout the region: ‘Look, we have additional benefits to starting and doing business in the Bahamas’.

“It’s building an argument to come and do business in the Bahamas, and not only do that but for Bahamians to understand it’s available to them as well.”

Ms Gardiner said that if successful, the Government would also “definitely encourage Bahamian businesses to take advantage”.

While agreeing that countries with textile/apparel industries stood to benefit more from the CBTPA, the trade director told Tribune Business that manufacturing and petroleum products - all included among the Bahamas’ exports to the US - would also be positively impacted.

Indeed, a US Trade Representative’s Office document says other products benefiting from the CBTPA, which expires in 2020, are : Footwear, canned tuna, petroleum products, certain watches and watch parts, certain handbags, luggage, flat goods, work gloves and leather wearing apparel.

“There are other benefits besides textiles. We’re definitely not accessing it for textiles,” Ms Gardiner told Tribune Business.

“One of the current thrusts of this administration is to seek to build manufacturing operations in the Bahamas. Any opportunity available to us we will seek to maximise, and that includes this particular initiative.

“That’s the entire reason for us entering trade agreements - to cause increased business activity in the Bahamas, and to cause there to be increased exports.”

Ms Gardiner said the main benefit from the Bahamas becoming a CBTPA beneficiary was that more exports would be covered by tariff reductions, rather than deeper cuts.

The last US Trade Representative’s Office report on the CBI said the Bahamas had leapfrogged Jamaica to become the Caribbean’s third largest exporter to the US.

Between $1.6-$1.7 billion worth of exports from Caribbean CBTPA beneficiaries enter the US annually.