The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas must strike a “very delicate balance” in ensuring that locally-owned industries and businesses are sustainable under the liberalised rules-based trading regime that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) will usher in, a Cabinet Minister has warned.

Financial Services Minister Ryan Pinder said the Government would look to maintain high tariffs in the ETO membership accession negotiations to protect this nation’s vulnerable industries, which rely on them to compete with foreign imports.

Speaking at a panel discussion on the benefits WTO membership on Wednesday night, Mr Pinder said: “You have to ensure that you have a domestic industry that can succeed and exist but can find new opportunities as well.

“You should not disregard the protection of the domestic industries. Manufacturers in this country are a key element of economic diversification, that’s why we give duty concessions and other concessions for their development.

“Ensuring that domestic industry and business is sustainable in the context of free trade requires a very delicate balance.”

The Bahamas’ largest trading partner, the US, has “initially looked for an across-the-board tariff rate” for the Bahamas, which Mr Pinder branded as “not feasible for us”.

We have domestic industry that we have to ensure gets some source of protection,” Mr Pinder added. “We have taken the position of negotiating a ‘peak in value’ tariff. We will look at where our domestic sensitivities are, and we will maintain a negotiating position of high tariff rates on those to ensure that our industries are protected; our employment and our entrepreneurs are protected.”
 Mr Pinder said the Government would look at other items that are less domestically sensitive, and may take those tariff rates down to zero.

He explained: “We will look at other items that are not domestically sensitive, that we don’t necessarily manufacture or that are not necessarily high revenue items for the country, and we many take those rates down to zero.

“We may achieve an average rate that our trading partners are looking for, but we do so in the context that offers the best protection for our industries that currently exist.”