Services
As many member states (specially the small states) are faced with the challenge to diversify their economic base as protectionist barriers are falling, the exports of professional services, namely Consultancies, Legal services, Education, Health , and IT enabled services (ITES) amongst others, seem to provide potential sources of growth and employment creation.
The approach taken by the Trade Section involves working with member countries to enable them to build local capacity both in the professional competence and trade facilitation. This includes capacity building to enable firms, individuals and countries to access the global services market and compete regardless of size and or distance from markets, at the same time providing government officials with the necessary tools and knowledge of exporting professional services. The approach includes the following:
- Assessment of institutional support;
- Assessment of local supply (content and quality);
- Market research;
- Assessment of the enabling environment (government policies);
- Legal and regulatory issues;
- Training for government officials including Commercial/trade Attaches
- Detailed Strategic Plans of how to Promote Exports of Professional services;
- Preparation of proposals on how to market their services.
The main focus of the projects completed in Malta, Cyprus and Sri Lanka was marketing, while in Malaysia the objective was to review the institutional set up for the promotion of services trade. During this financial year, a study on the feasibility of exporting health educational services from St. Lucia was completed. Furthermore, at the request of Caribbean Export (CE), a project for the “Promotion of professional services in the Commonwealth Caribbean” was completed. The objective was to use 4 countries as case studies to develop an approach that could be replicated by CE to other members in the region. The countries chosen by CE were: Trinidad & Tobago, St. Lucia, Dominica, and Barbados.
Two projects are on-going, one for Guyana and the other for Mauritius which consists of developing a roadmap for the export of services. Additional requests from Kenya and Jamaica are being processed.