By NATARIO McKENZIE
Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net
The Government must enact policies to protect Bahamian businesses once this nation joins the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Bahamian Contractors Association's (BCA) president said yesterday.
Acknowledging that the WTO "is not a bad thing", Leonard Sands told Tribune Business: "We have been engaged, and we're a part of committee that will give a response to the Government on WTO.
"What's interesting to us is that two months ago we talked about what we saw as the impact of WTO on many of the contractors. Now the Government is finally at the same place we are at, saying you need to get prepared and this is what you need to think about because we could create policy to kind of shield you."
Mr Sands added: "We are crafting our response that we hope would affect policy, and the Government would put that into legislation. The WTO is not a bad thing but all the other nations have done their homework and adjusted their legislation to give their existing businesses some sort of protection within the framework of WTO. We are racing to put ours in place."
Earlier this year, Mr Sands called on the Government to implement the regulations accompanying the already-passed Contractors Act - and appoint the Board that will oversee its operation - to initiate the industry's oversight regime.
He argued that Bahamian contractors and other industry players could be squeezed out by increased competition from foreign rivals exploiting a liberalised trade environment to grab an even greater share of locally-based projects.
Mr Sands said yesterday: "One of the concerns that we have with WTO is that it creates a trade imbalance if we don't call for reciprocity. We have to make sure the relationship's reciprocal. We can't trade outside and get the same benefit because we haven't set our policies to reflect that. We are at a trade imbalance and we need to fix that."
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