End “emotional appeal” to int’l community – Finance Minister

Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh on Tuesday called for an end to the “emotional argument” used to persuade the global community about the Caribbean’s vulnerability. Dr Singh made the comments while speaking at the opening of the second meeting of the Caribbean Development Roundtable (CDR) held at the Guyana International Conference Centre (GICC) by the United Nations Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

“The UN system has an important role to play, ECLAC in particular, in helping us to move from the emotional argument about our vulnerability and about our peculiar challenges to a more credible and robust case being made to the international community about the circumstances of the small states of the Caribbean.”

He said too that intelligence has to be directed to this area so that the world can be convinced that there is need for special treatment of countries located in the Caribbean Bloc. If not, Dr Singh said, mere emotional arguments will not suffice, and the international community will continue to believe that Caribbean countries can manage on their own.

According to him, regional challenges are on the rise though the Caribbean Community did not contribute to many of the challenges facing it. He said too that countries within the Caribbean region have been labelled middle-income countries though they lack finances.

Dr Singh added that notwithstanding the extreme indebtedness of many Caribbean states, “because we fall under the classification of middle-income countries, the global community is either unprepared or unequipped to respond to the case for whether it is debt relief or some other approach to restructure the debt of Caribbean countries”.

The finance minister stated that there are many indicators that point strategically to the vulnerability of Caribbean countries. According to him, more can be done by ECLAC and the United Nations in assisting the region to present a strong and more so convincing case to the global community.

Dr Singh used climate change as an example, noting that the Caribbean region has demonstrated environmental responsibilities over the years, both individually and collectively though Caribbean countries by and large have made no contribution to environmental degradation; a challenge the world is currently grappling with as a result of economic and other activities over the last few centuries.

“But yet not having made no contributions to this degradation, our countries face complete decimation –- some of us live on islands that would literally disappear if the Caribbean sea is to rise a couple of inches.”

Further, he used Guyana as an example, noting that the country is below sea level while stating that a significant proportion of the population reside on the coastland. He added that should Guyana experience heavy rainfall, the country is threatened. The same is true, he noted for other small islands in the region. “No Caribbean jurisdiction contributed in a significant way, contributed really in any way to the occurrence of this global financial crisis.”

He said with both the global economic and climate crises, Caribbean countries were faced with economic devastation, whether it resulted in threats to some of our financial services industries, or tourism sectors.

Accordingly, the finance minister stated that Caribbean countries face tremendous exposure and vulnerability to global economic crises as well as other events, noting that “we exercise limited ability to influence those events.”

He said too that policy makers are finding it difficult to strike a balance between achieving fiscal sustainability so as to return debt levels to acceptable and sustainable norms, while “at the same time facing, confronting the imperative of investing for long-term growth and social development; balancing those two.”

Dr Singh added that developed economies are currently confronted with their fiscal abilities, and noted that large economies such as Europe are experiencing difficulties in striking a balance between achieving fiscal sustainability and confronting investments on a long term basis that would ensure growth. “One could certainly imagine how much more difficult a task it is for us in the Caribbean,” he said.

Those participating in the roundtable discussions were Dr Ashni Singh; Trinidad and Tobago Finance Minister Winston Dookheran and Bank of Guyana Deputy Governor Dr Gobind Ganga.

The 24th ministerial session of ECLAC will be held at the same venue where President Donald Ramotar is expected to make the feature address.