The Tribune

The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) yesterday said it is aiming to launch a services industry coalition this summer, in a bid to better focus on that sector’s concerns and companies seeking international market access.

    Edison Sumner, the BCCEC’s chief executive, said yesterday that the services coalition would complement the ‘trade in information’ services desk, another initiative being led by the Chamber. “

A programme that we are seeking to start this summer is the Coalition for Service Industries, where we are seeking to establish the services sector coalition,” Mr Sumner said.

“Many in the services sector are already members of the Chamber, but we want to put them into groups where we can bring specific focus to some of the concerns they have, and also assit in finding markets for them to export their services throughout the region.”

Mr Sumner added: “We had meetings with the Caribbean Services Coalition in Barbados a few months ago, and we have already submitted our paperwork to them to form the local chapter of the services coalition  brand of the Chamber of Commerce, similar to what we would have done with the Coalition for Responsible Taxation, the trade in information services, and the SME help desk. It works well with the trade in information services desk because, in a  lot of cases, there is a similar type of information.”

Mr Sumner said the Chamber is finalizing the framework for its small and medium-sized (SME) help desk, which is expected to be launched in mid-June.

“We’re still working on it. We’re finalising the framework, terms and conditions,” he added. “What we are doing now is just putting some of the final elements in place, finalising the way we want to see the desk function, going through the list of other small business professionals who we are intending to engage as a part of the process.

“What we are going to be doing is not only managing the desk internally, providing support to SMEs in the country, Chamber members and otherwise, but we will also seek to engage some of the other small business professionals so that they can come in, add capacity to what we are doing, and be able to provide adviceworking along with the Chamber’s curriculum and agenda to ensure that we would bee able to reach everyone we need to reach.”

    Mr Sumner said the SME help desk will not only facilitate businesses in New Providence but be a country-wide initiative.

“We are seeking to also take this to the country, sit with business persons  on the other islands as well, spend a few days mentoring and getting them the kind of support they are going to need,” Mr Sumner said.

“It’s going to be a  comprehensive programme, and we think it is something that will work wonderfully well for SMEs throughout the country. We don’t want it to be seen as a Nassau-centric initiative.”