RTC Director

This is it! More than 1.6 million Jamaican electors to vote today

JAMAICANS WILL today journey to approximately 7,000 polling stations across the island to cast their votes to determine the party which will form the next government.

This collective decision will either ratify the ruling Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) four-year tenure in office, giving the Andrew Holness-led party a second consecutive term in government, or catapult the Portia Simpson Miller-led People's National Party (PNP) to the seat of power after a short spell in the political wilderness.

It is the 16th time since universal adult suffrage in 1944 that Jamaicans will cast their ballots for a government they believe has the capacity and vision to steer the country on a path to economic growth and job creation, leading to economic and social stability.

Between the 7 a.m. opening and 5 p.m. closing of the polls, the just over 1.6 million eligible electors will signal their choice of government. The new government will lead a country faced with the monumental task of resuming the stalled 27-month standby agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Since September 2010, the country has not taken the quarterly IMF tests due to major hiccups with Jamaica's economic targets under the existing agreement.

During the leadership debate on December 20, the last of three national debates, Holness and Simpson Miller sought to woo those voters who might not have made up their minds.

In her closing remarks, Simpson Miller reeled off specific actions that a PNP government would take if it is elected.

"When we form the next government, we will expand educational opportunities at all levels, finance a national export strategy, place a special focus on SMEs, negotiate an extended fund facility with the IMF, focus on non-traditional sectors such as ICTs and the creative and cultural sectors," Simpson Miller outlined.

Soar to prosperity

Holness used his closing statement to paint a picture of hope, arguing that there were signs that the country could soar to prosperity.

"Now that we have stability in our economy, the glimmers of hope can be turned into the flame of prosperity for all. I believe we can do it; I believe we can end poverty; I believe we can have universal education; I believe we can have world-class infrastructure; I believe we can have a disciplined, loving and caring society. I believe in Jamaica, I believe in you. I ask for your support," the prime minister said.

That was in keeping with the position of the JLP on the campaign trail where it has claimed that its members are the better managers of the economy and have set the framework for economic growth. Following 13-consecutive quarters of decline, the country this year recorded growth for the last three quarters covering the period January to September. For the period January to March, the economy grew by 1.5 per cent; April to June 1.5 per cent and July to September 0.5 per cent.

This followed the massive effects of the global economic meltdown which had sent world markets in a tailspin and left developing states, like Jamaica, struggling to recover from its crippling impact.

On the other hand, the PNP has castigated the administration for what it describes as "the mismanagement" of the country, citing significant job losses over the last four years, a stalemate in the IMF agreement and the skyrocketing of the country's debt from about $900 billion in 2007 to approximately $1.6 trillion at present.

The Gleaner

by RTC Director

CARICOM chairman looks back at 2011

Outgoing Caribbean Community (CARICOM) chairman, St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Dr Denzil Douglas, says despite the ongoing global economic and financial crises the 15-member regional integration bloc has remained a “symbol of stability and good governance.”

In a Christmas message to the region, Douglas said reflections on the past year will be coloured by the challenges spawned by the current period of global uncertainties.

“The challenges, including those directly related to the global economic and financial crises have honed our attention particularly on finding creative ways to confront them. We have sought, for example, to encourage foreign investment from new areas and welcomed the interest shown by India, China and Japan, all of whom mounted trade and investment missions to the region seeking opportunities,” he pointed out.

Douglas said the continuing increases in the prices of food and the search for food sovereignty have engaged the attention of CARICOM.

“Our stakeholders in the agriculture sector, as evinced most recently in Dominica, where they participated in the Caribbean Week of Agriculture, are working assiduously to find a solution to those particular challenges. We must continue to encourage them by buying and consuming locally grown food -- which we are by no means short of – so that we could lower our very high food import bill, and at the same time, maintain healthy lifestyles,” Douglas said.

In advancing the latter ideal, Douglas said that the Community can take pride in the fact that it provided the leadership to appropriately position on the international stage, the threat of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

As a result of the Community’s advocacy, the United Nations General Assembly agreed to convene a high level meeting on NCDs, which was held in September in New York, although the outcome may not have been as ambitious as had been envisaged.

“Regionally, we have made great strides in initiating operations of the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), a consolidation of five regional health institutions. The Agency, I am pleased to announce, will come on stream early in the New Year. Our solid achievements in health have extended also to successes recorded by the Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP),” Douglas said in his message to the people of the Caribbean.

“People of the Community, securing your livelihood and well-being have been at the forefront of our activities; however, given their importance to our Community, we have placed much emphasis on youth development. In the last quarter of this year, we boosted our campaign against youth gangs and gang violence with interventions across the Region that have yielded encouraging results and which will determine our response going forward,” he said.

Douglas said that a major factor in ensuring that well-being and indeed the existence is a commitment to the adaptation and mitigation of climate change.

“Earlier this month, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, we continued our advocacy for attention to be paid to the deleterious effects of climate change on the natural environments and economies of our small states. One of the outcomes of the Durban Conference was a decision by parties to adopt a universal legal agreement on climate change as soon as possible, and no later than 2015. The Community, in particular, through Grenada’s leadership of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), ensured that a number of our concerns was addressed in the outcome document,” the CARICOM chairman said.

He also mentioned the continued quest to cement relations with third states and groups of states with some emphasis on those in the hemisphere.

A plan of action for closer co-operation and joint initiatives was drawn up with the Integration System of Central America (SICA) in a range of areas and work has begun through the two regional Secretariats to ensure that these initiatives make an impact on the lives of the people of both regions.

Douglas said he was particularly pleased to participate in the fourth CARICOM-Cuba summit held in Trinidad and Tobago earlier in December, where the Community renewed and advanced its longstanding relationship with Cuba.

“There are also meaningful people-centered activities arising out of that encounter in health, agriculture, infrastructure building and culture, which would doubtlessly improve the well-being of our citizens,” he said.

Looking back on 2011, “we can do so with a measure of comfort that we have fulfilled the charge delivered at the beginning of the year by my predecessor, the Hon. Tillman Thomas, Prime Minister of Grenada, to make 2011 a ‘watershed year,’ a year when a new generation of leaders would take their place in the Community. At that time, we were confident that we would weather the multiple storms that were facing us by dint of strengthening community bonds, cooperating with each other and utilising all the skills available to us.”

He also noted that one of his first tasks as chairman of the Community was to install Ambassador Irwin LaRocque as the new secretary-general of CARICOM, an occasion that, “for me, heralded a turning point in the history of our Community.”

“He has begun the task of finding creative ways to chart the Community’s course in the current global environment. As we contemplate our resolutions for the new year, let us collectively pledge to work together to build on our founding fathers’ dreams of regional integration, securing a community for all for generations to come.

“During our celebration of this season of goodwill, let us, as a Community, reflect on our achievements over the year that is fast ending, a reflection that will no doubt be coloured by the challenges spawned by the current period of global uncertainties,” he said.

Douglas said those external upheavals have served to strengthen the resolve to drive the integration movement forward, a stance for which there has been firm support and commitment from the regional populace.

“I wish to reiterate my commendation to you for your resilience and for the outstanding qualities that have enabled our Community to remain a symbol of stability and good governance, reflected in our embrace of democratic processes,” the CARICOM chairman said.

CUOPM

by RTC Director

St Vincent and the Grenadines ranked in top world destinations by CNN

St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) has been ranked number five in the “World’s Top Destinations for 2012” by Cable News Network (CNN).

SVG is the only Caribbean destination to make the CNN rankings and is described as “a tropical paradise”.

“What's not to like about a tropical paradise that bills itself as ‘one destination, 32 gorgeous Caribbean islands’?” CNN said.

“Located between St Lucia and Grenada, this island chain has long drawn stars and vacationers with deep pockets, but it will become more accessible to a wider range of travelers thanks to a $240 million airport scheduled to open on St Vincent,” Travel + Leisure reports.

The nine destinations to have made the rankings came from the recommendations of four travel experts: Robert Reid, US travel editor for Lonely Planet; Martin Rapp, senior vice president of Leisure Sales at Altour; Anne Banas, executive editor at Smarter Travel; and Jeanenne Tornatore, senior editor for Orbitz.com. Other suggestions came from Travel + Leisure and Budget Travel.

by RTC Director

Singapore appoints representative to Caricom

Singapore has appointed its first Plenipotentiary Representative to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

He is Kemal Siddique, a released issued today by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated.

Siddique, the Executive Director of Tony K Siddique & Associates Pte Ltd, will be resident in Singapore.

He currently serves as Singapore’s Non-Resident Ambassador to Denmark and Special Envoy of Asia-Middle East Dialogue for Economic/Business Issues. He is also a Special Envoy to Ukraine.

Siddique joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in August 1970, served as Counsellor at the Singapore Embassy in Jakarta from 1971 to 1973 and Charge d’Affaires ad interim at the Singapore Embassy in Bonn from 1973 to 1978.

He was also Deputy Director for Western Europe and North America from 1978 to 1982 and Director for Southeast Asia from 1982 to 1984.

Prior to his current appointment as Non-Resident Ambassador to Denmark, he served as Singapore’s Non-Resident Ambassador to Norway, Sweden and Finland.

In 1996, he retired from the civil service and moved to the private sector.

Siddique was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Silver) and the Public Service Star by the Singapore government.

The German government conferred the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for his contribution in promoting Singapore-German Relations.

Caribbean 360 News

by RTC Director

Cuba wraps up dramatic year of economic change

A year at the vanguard of Cuba's economic revival has not brought Julio Cesar Hidalgo riches. The fledgling pizzeria owner has had his good months, but the restaurant he opened with his girlfriend often runs at a loss. At times, they can't afford to buy basic ingredients.

Yet the wide-faced 31-year-old says he is grateful to be in business at all. A year ago, Hidalgo was concocting chalky pastries in a Spartan state-run bakery where employees and managers competed to pilfer eggs, flour and olive oil, the only way to make ends meet on salaries of just US$15 a month. Today, he is his own boss, a taxpayer, employer and entrepreneur.

"I think my expectations were met because in Cuba today, I couldn't have hoped for anything more," he said, one recent December afternoon, as his girlfriend, Giselle de la Noval, served customers. "We survived."

Hidalgo's story is mirrored by many of the entrepreneurs The Associated Press has followed since January in a yearlong effort to document Communist Cuba's awkward embrace of free-market reforms.

Their experiences - like the reforms themselves - cannot be described as an unmitigated success. Of the dozen fledgling business owners, including restaurateurs, a DVD salesman, two café owners, a seamstress, a manicurist and a gymnasium operator, three have closed down or begun working for someone else, and one has been harassed by her former state employers. None could be considered successful by non-Cuban standards.

But despite their struggles, many tell of lives transformed, dreams realised, attitudes changed, and doors opened that had been closed for more than half a century.

Personal hardships

For Hidalgo, personal hardships have added to the challenges of starting a business on a Marxist island that has looked askance at entrepreneurship since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution turned a one-time capitalist playground into a Soviet satellite.

After suffering through a slow, hot, summer when nobody wanted a pizza, Hidalgo had to close for two months to care for his grandmother, who has Alzheimer's disease. Even while the business was shuttered, he and de la Noval had to make tax and social security payments, wiping out the few hundred dollars they had saved.

They reopened in late November with so little money they can't always afford to serve their house special.

"We've had to start from scratch, but the only reason we didn't lose the business altogether is because we were disciplined," said de la Noval, 23.

"Before we did anything, we always put away the money we needed to pay the state."

A year that President Raul Castro described as make-or-break, as the revolution comes to an end with a dramatic flurry of once-unthinkable reforms that are transforming economic and social life.

In October, the government legalised a used car market, and a month later extended it to real estate, sweeping away decades of prohibitions. On Tuesday, the state began extending bank credits to new business owners and those hoping to repair their homes.

But one of the most powerful reforms was Castro's decision last year to greatly expand the ranks of the self-employed, part of a somewhat unsuccessful effort to trim bloated state-payrolls.

Some 338,000 people have received licences to start their own businesses, and the results can be seen and heard everywhere.

Makeshift signs

On nearly every street in Havana and in thousands of hamlets and towns across Cuba, makeshift signs and bright parasols mark the entrances of new businesses, and the long-lost cries of curbside vendors hawking everything from fruit and vegetables to mops and household-repair services fill the warm Caribbean air.

"The reforms have advanced, perhaps not quickly enough considering the problems that have accumulated, but they have advanced, one after another, and there is no sign that they will stop or be rolled back," said Omar Everleny Perez, the head of Havana University's Center for Cuban Economic Studies

The government has declined to release any statistics on tax revenue or payroll savings from the reforms, except for an October report in the Communist Party newspaper Granma that said tax revenue from new businesses had tripled.

Cuban leaders this month lowered their forecast for economic growth for 2011 to just 2.7 per cent - from the three per cent originally hoped for - an extremely poor showing for a developing country.

By contrast, China is forecast to grow by about nine per cent in 2011, Vietnam by between six and 6.5 per cent and Brazil by 3.8 per cent.

Private business owners have complained about the high taxes they must pay, the lack of raw materials and the fact they are suddenly surrounded by competitors. Because most entrepreneurs don't have the capital to start innovative businesses, many have opened cafeterias, nail parlours, small roadside kiosks and the like.

Rafael Romeu, the head of the Washington, DC-based Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, said Castro has "changed the conversation" since taking over from his ailing brother in 2006, pushing the leadership to get the island's economic house in order rather than blaming external factors like the 49-year US travel-and-trade embargo.

But so far, the changes don't go far enough to revive Cuba's moribund economy.

"These are positive steps but when you say them out loud, just think about it ... You are allowed to have a cellphone, you are allowed to buy a home, you are allowed to buy a car or have a microenterprise. This is not the fall of the Berlin Wall. These are not major changes," he said. "Cuba has tremendous difficulties. This is a marathon, and they are taking baby steps."

Romeu, who has worked around the world studying emerging economies, said that Cuba is moving much more deliberately than the Chinese did when they began opening their economy in the late 1970s, or the Vietnamese a decade later.

Cuba's predicament is somewhat different, as well. Both China and Vietnam were deeply agrarian economies whose challenge was lifting tens of millions out of crushing poverty, Romeu said. Cuba is a more urban country with an aging population whose citizens have gotten used to benefits like health care and education, but who have grown accustomed to a system that doesn't make them work for such middle-class perks.

"In Cuba, the challenge is sustaining the middle class, not creating one," Romeu said.

Still, some reforms seem to be moving along more quickly than many analysts had hoped.

Business is booming at a street corner long known as the center of Havana's informal real estate market. Only now, the handwritten listings on trees openly advertise legal home sales, instead of disguising them as property "swaps."

Mendez Rodriguez, an unofficial real estate broker, said the buying and selling is aboveboard, controlled by a relatively untangled bureaucracy.

"Everything is by the law now," said Rodriguez, even if his profession is not officially licensed. He and other so-called facilitators work for "gifts" left to the discretion of their clients, he said.

Rumours that real estate brokers would be the latest addition to the list of 181 licensed entrepreneurial activities have not come to pass, but there's still hope the profession will be added in 2012. Rodriguez said the opening seems to have led to a steep increase in prices, with a home worth US$20,000 a couple of months ago going for 50 per cent more today.

by RTC Director