Presentation made by Dr. Didacus Jules at the GCIC CEO Breakfast Meeting on Tuesday 30th June, 2015

1. GROWTH, COMPETITIVENESS & JOBS:
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CARIBBEAN
Caribbean Growth Forum 2015
Dr. Didacus Jules
OECS
St. Lucia
16th June 2015

2. The Caribbean region’s interventions of the past
decades aimed at spurring growth have not led to the
expected outcomes.
Supply-side responses, focused on improving the
overall investment climate and on removing obstacles
to growth, have not generated the expected growth
rates and employment levels.
World Bank 2015

3. WHAT THEN?....
3 questions:
1. What have we been doing to achieve these things?
2. What is required to achieve these things?
3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve them?

4. 1. What have we been doing to achieve these things?

5. 1. What have we been doing to achieve these things?
 Heavy reliance on foreign direct investment
 Pursuit on insular national agendas (trying to
create solutions in our own silos)
 Wage restraints, fiscal cuts
 Stimulus packages in areas such as
construction (but undermined by structural
leakages in economy)

6. 2. What is required to achieve these things?

7. 2. What is required to achieve these things?
Long term vision without neglecting short term
gains necessary build public confidence in its "do-ability"
Acceptance that there are no quick fixes or magic
bullets - only a consistent slog along arduous roads sticking
to the plan. The importance of process to progress. E.g
ease of doing business: a diagnostic tool that we have treated
as a terminal sentence.
A POLITICAL EQUATION

8. 2. What is required to achieve these things?
Growth = exports?
Or is it:
 Organic expansion involving better
articulation/integration of economic
sectors?
 Is regaining market share of our own
internal markets part of the new growth
paradigm?
 Addressing underlying competitiveness
issues that affect business?
GROWTH: not just
MORE but BETTER
Haque “Betterness: Econ. For Humans”

9. 2. What is required to achieve these things?
STRUCTURAL REFORM of economy an imperative:
 Public sector efficiency
 Private sector capability – productive orientation
 The delicate balance between public interest
regulation/protection and market liberalization (decisive
interventions to protect the poor & vulnerable)
New C21 opportunity not possible without
modernization of sectors and processes

10. 2. What is required to achieve these things?
Special attention must be paid to labor – low skilled labor costs
too high for type of manufacturing/production on one hand; on
the other region losing higher skilled workers esp tech workers.
What are schools producing?
An alignment of the regional and the national –
address the diseconomies of scale especially in the productive
sectors

11. 3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?

12. Changing the mindset – move away from social scientific compartmentalism
Need for an ecological perspective on development
a different
public
discourse on
development
issues
if the problems are
inter-related then
the solutions must
be integrated
Connect jobs
to
opportunity
and mobility
3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?
Social compact
on the way
forward –
national
consensus

14. GROWTH
COMPETITIVENESS
JOBS
 Constant search for “models” for imitation
 Quantitative rather than qualitative
increases
 Low skill, median pay employment
 Alignment of education with a low value job
market and not with high value possibilities
 Wage models not business models
 Not reshaping our institutional capacity –
you cannot build a new house on an old
architecture and with outmoded processes
 Attempts to develop industry constrained by
economies of scale and size
3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?

15. GROWTH
COMPETITIVENESS
JOBS
sustainability
EQUITY
decent work
sustainability
what differentiates us?
doing it better, cheaper, faster
Entrepreneurship = self determination
steady and consistent
Individual mobility & opportunity

16. Framework for Facilitating OECS Growth and Development
Agriculture
Health
Tourism
Education
Employment
Culture
Well-being
ECONOMY-SOCIETY AS
ECO-SYSTEM APPROACH
© macaulay.cuny.edu

17. 3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?
AGRICULTURE +
TOURISM +
EDUCATION +
ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY
LINKAGES
US$480M
FOOD IMPORT BILL

18. 3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?
Opportunities are EVERYWHERE!
RETHINK
PPP
From subvention mindset to self-reliance effort:
the example of the OECS Coalition of Service Industries
Govt subvention of EC$100K vs provision of outsourced
services to Govt – EC$2M?

19. A single economic space

20. COUNTRY
POPULATION
2011/2012
GDP
(Constant
2012 - Million
US$)
PER CAPITA
INCOME
(constant
2012 - US$)
World Bank
Group - Ease
of Doing
Business
Rank
Anguilla 13,037 242.70 18,616.25 -
Antigua & Barbuda 84,816 1,007.06 11,306.57 89
British Virgin Islands 28,280 593.85 32,155.00 -
Dominica 71,293 450.16 6,279.80 97
Grenada 106,667 683.40 6,478.72 126
Montserrat 4,922 58.80 11,946.36 -
St. Kitts & Nevis 46,204 599.49 11,187.92 121
St. Lucia 166,526 1,085.80 6,003.19 100
St. Vincent & the Grenadines 109,188 606.29 5,543.34 103
OECS TOTALS 630,933 5,327.55 8,443.92 -
Martinique 436,131 6,117.00 14,400.00 -
Guadeloupe 452,776 3,513.00 7,900.00 -
OECS Including French
Territories
1,519,840 14,957.55 9,841.53
Jamaica N/A N/A 58
Trinidad & Tobago 1,337,439 18,969.16 14,183.20 79
Barbados 283,221 4,064.09 14,349.55 106
ALL CARICOM 17,326,261 51,237.40 2,957.21 -

21. 3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?
create strategic value (sustainable and productive
employment, intellectual capital development and
employee capability development) to ignite output
growth
SAINT LUCIA STEP:
Home Caregivers
Jobs & elderly care
OECS Caribbean
Seasonal Agric Workers
Program
2011-13: 1,800 workers; EC$60M
Francis 2015

22. 3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?
Human resource (PEOPLE) development
as central to any sustainable future
 People the most abundant “resource”
 Growth for what? – for social progress, cohesion,
opportunity
 An education revolution – talent, creativity, STEAM+
(science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics plus
Caribbean History/Identity, soft skills)

23. 3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?
A targeted approach to national development
Using big data & GIS to identify geographic and sectoral
interventions where they matter most

24. 3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?
Investing in ourselves:
leveraging the diaspora and
internal national resources
Diaspora economic investment
Diaspora significant intellectual capital
Self reliant capital formation
Revitalizing the OECS Stock Exchange

25. 3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?
Shaping a new more entrepreneurial
and productive private sector
Incentives needed to stimulate
Incubate a new generation of entrepreneurs: youth – less
risk averse and more adventurous.. New niche
opportunities
Mechanisms for partnerships:
Revitalizing the OECS stock exchange
Joint ventures driven by diplomatic business outreach
Angel investment-crowd sourcing

26. 3. What do we need to do differently if we are to achieve
them?
Using the OGDS as a unifying
framework for synergizing
national development efforts
in the context of the single
economic space

27. Thank you