The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas has not “been able to grasp” the sacrifices and reforms that are required by trade liberalisation, the head of this nation’s trade commission argued yesterday.

Philip Galanis told the Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) annual accountants week conference that this nation has “not been able to get our hands around” all the implications of becoming a full member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the body which oversees the world’s rules-based trading regimes.

He said: “We have at the Trade Commission been given a mandate also to begin the process of, or continue the process of, admission into the WTO, the World Trade Organisation. There are a number of reasons why we’ve not made more progress than we have in recent years. In fact, we started the process in 2002. This is now 2023,” Mr Galanis said.

He explained that rules-based, liberalised trade regimes require making “sacrifices” that the Bahamian people have not been prepared to make. This has left The Bahamas as the only country in the Western Hemisphere that has not become a full WTO member

“We are unfortunately the only country in the Caribbean, the only country in the Western Hemisphere actually, that’s not a member of the WTO and there have been a number of reasons for that, principal of which is that liberalization is an issue that has with it a number of implications that we’ve not really been able to grasp and get our hands around,” Mr Galanis added.

“What that means essentially is that when we liberalise trade, it means that we are going to have to make certain sacrifices that we as a country have not really been prepared to do.”

Mr Galanis said there is a “certain amount of xenophobia” that Bahamians display when faced with the prospect of hiring foreign labour, with professionals “very protective” of their jobs and industries.

He said: “For example, there’s always a certain amount of xenophobia related to the free movement of people. We don’t want people coming into The Bahamas and taking our jobs. The lawyers don’t want it, the architects and the engineers don’t want it. We want to be very protective in our various industries and our professions. And so there are some issues relative to trade liberalisation that need to be worked out.”

Mr Galanis said the Trade Commission is working on identifying industries that may be vulnerable to trade liberalisation as well as those that will benefit most. He added that the Commission will make recommendations to the Government on “bolstering” the most vulnerable sectors.

He said: “We’ve got to, at the Trade Commission, help to identify what those vulnerabilities are and help to try to address them.

“We also have to try as a commission to identify industries and sectors that will benefit most from trade liberalisation. There are some industries that we believe will do extremely well as a result of liberalising our trade. And finally, we want to provide recommendations to the Government on bolstering the vulnerabilities and the sectors that will be impacted by trade.”