Commonwealth Business Forum opening ceremony

Prime Minister, Honourable Ministers, Director-General, distinguished guests and participants, I am delighted to address this opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Business Forum.

Dreams never quite come true, do they?

Whilst I have long toyed with the idea of a Caribbean cruise, I never quite imagined wearing a suit, not sailing even an inch, and being in the company of the Commonwealth business community – delightful though it is …. !

I thank all of you who have journeyed here to Port of Spain, and I applaud the efforts of the Commonwealth Business Council, the moving force behind this extraordinary forum … this platform of potential, with the promise of change.

Here, in this room, we see the sheer convening power, and the tremendous reach of this Commonwealth network of ours.

It was to harness that power and reach that a presentation was made to some of you over breakfast this morning, showing the business window of the proposed Commonwealth Partnership Platform Portal. With Heads’ and your support, the P3 constitutes a potential step change of connectivity in the way we do business together.

This great business gathering is, of course, just one part of the Commonwealth network which convenes in Trinidad this week.

I repeat the words I used at the launch of the Commonwealth People’s Forum (that is, its civil society community) on Sunday evening.

I spoke then of the three-legged Commonwealth stool which brings together the public sector, the private sector, and the ‘third’ sector (or civil society).

Some legs may seem to be longer than others, or wobblier, but still the stool stands, and it needs three sturdy legs to do so.

CHOGM in Edinburgh in 1997 was the defining moment when Heads of Government formally recognized that the Commonwealth is – amongst other things – a very large economic and trading community, of enormous potential.

It was in that year that the CBC was created, and it has gone on to do significant things to stimulate trade and investment within and between our 53 nations.

In other words, we are not just an alliance of governments.

We have long since accepted that government cannot and should not do everything.

Some things are simply too big for it, and some too small.

The challenges of our societies are so immense that we will rise to them best if we all shoulder our responsibility, and if we do so in partnership.

And if this sounds like just words and aspiration, then I point you to a new Commonwealth publication: a helpful compendium of best practice in public-private partnerships in the Commonwealth.

Most PPPs are two-way, but the ones that enthuse me further are three-way, of the kind that we are starting to see which involve partnerships of government, of business and of civil society, in delivering public goods.

An Indian and Canadian environment facility, set up in 1993 and to bring renewable energy to rural areas of India, is a powerful example.

My theme today – and yours these three days – is partnership in the pursuit of equity and sustainability.

And well it might be: ours is a Commonwealth built on the foundations of inclusiveness, of collectiveness, of shared aspiration, concern and responsibility.

I should continue here on the topic of our ‘shared concern’.

At the time of the last Business Forum, in Kampala in November 2007, the Dow Jones average had just reached its highest ever level, and the collapse of a former building society in the UK seemed like not much more than a domestic oddity … a small blip.

Since then, we have seen a chastening and extraordinary two years, for business people and policy makers alike.

Many of our assumptions about how markets operate, about the balance of economic power in the world, and about what constitutes a good investment, have been undermined.

No less than half of our member countries are suffering negative growth.

All over the Commonwealth, we see the devastation of downturn: we estimate that another 50 million of our citizens have fallen into poverty in the last twelve months, while the neediest areas of national life (like health, and education…) have seen their budgets cut.

There is an unseen spectre hovering over this meeting, and that is pernicious, persistent poverty.

And it is development – it is business – it is people like yourselves – who provide the best routes out of poverty.

Now we may hear that green shoots of recovery are beginning to be detected, and yes, the Dow Jones is nearly 50% higher than in March of this year.

But it is not often remarked that these shoots appear to be visible in industrial and emerging economies, not in the poorer ones.

So the rich man’s winter cold threatens to become the poor man’s chronic influenza.

The changes brought about by this downturn may be recorded by indices, but they are felt by people.

And these summits are not about politics, or economics: they are about people.

This is not the occasion for dwelling on the causes and consequences of downturn and global crisis.

But it is an opportunity to highlight some of the lessons that should inform the interaction of Commonwealth business and Commonwealth government in the light of the crisis, and to consider how they can move forward together.

This is why I want to focus today on two related themes: interdependency and partnership.

First, interdependency.

As global integration has been fuelled over the past three decades by the ever-increasing flow of goods, services and capital across the world, then peoples, businesses and countries have become ever more interdependent.

Goods and services from diverse and previously dormant regions of the world have become the currency and shorthand of globalisation.

After the global economic emergencies of recent times, it is easy to forget the positive and transformative impact that this process of integration has had.

Whilst, as I have said, there are still far too many people in poverty, rising living standards across the world mean that there are now in fact half a billion fewer poor people than there were a generation ago.

Business is at the heart of this achievement.

No country has raised living standards without a thriving private sector.

However, as trade and reconfiguration in the global division of labour have reinforced interdependency at the international level, the national ability of business to generate the employment and wealth which every country seeks is substantially dependent on the actions of others.

It would be easy at an event like CHOGM to think of societies as consisting of distinct segments where youth meets with youth, business with business, and politicians with politicians.

But that is not the reality.

Without successful businesses, the social goals of the politicians will not be met.

Without healthy and well educated workers, profitable businesses will struggle to exist.

Without youth being turned from job seekers to job creators, the potential of the next generation of Commonwealth citizens will remain unrealised.

Without the rule of law supported by an efficient and honest polity, the foundations of prosperity can not be laid.

Within the work of the Commonwealth Secretariat we are guided by the twin, inter-dependent, goals of supporting democracy and development.

We pursue those two goals precisely because they are complementary and mutually reinforcing.

We are not ourselves business people, but the enterprise development work which we do undertake is entirely democratic.

It brings, for instance, a special focus on women entrepreneurs, not just men.

And its focus is always on the small and medium enterprises – the local, often family affairs – which are the dynamos of any economy.

Some of our success is quantifiable: the £800 million raised to date by our Commonwealth Private Investment Initiative attests to the fact that people will invest in promoting development in countries which have the democratic forms and structures to make that development a safe bet.

This interdependency of democracy and development has created the conditions for economic progress.

But, meanwhile, greater global integration has meant that economic shocks – which could once be geographically limited in impact – can be transmitted seismically throughout the system, with global repercussions.

Tackling these global challenges is beyond the grasp of single countries, or of particular segments of societies.

In the age of globalization, challenges and their solutions are collective.

It is because of the imperative of collaboration that the partnership focus of this year’s CHOGM, and this year’s Commonwealth Business Forum, is so important.

It is a theme which speaks not only to the nature of the interdependent modern world, but also to the essence of the Commonwealth – for without partnership, the Commonwealth cannot work.

And the foundation of that partnership is a trust amongst the membership founded on shared values.

But to meet modern challenges, the partnerships need to be intensified.

Let me quickly mention three more aspects of government-business partnership.

The first is climate change, which we know will be a major item on the menu when Heads meet later this week, in the very week before the UN’s Copenhagen Summit.

Climate change, we know, is an existential threat to parts of the Commonwealth.

Our membership contains many of the countries which are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change:

This is an issue on which business must also make its voice heard.

The challenge of climate change can only be tackled by mobilising the finance, the technology, the innovative potential and the ingenuity of the private sector.

We should recognize the innovative work of the Commonwealth Business Council on this issue, and business clearly has its own, huge responsibilities in this regard.

Yet without the work of governments in settling a long term policy framework in which investment decisions can be taken with confidence, that business potential cannot be realised.

The second is trade.

The Commonwealth is committed to a fair and open trading system.

You will recall when Heads of Government issued the Valletta Declaration on Multilateral Trade in 2005: a brave statement that rich countries should give more than they receive in the Doha talks.

The Doha Round remains stalled with competitive interests, but we continue to press for its successful outcome, and for it to live up to its description as a development round.

We must be able to deliver on our obligation to help meet the aspirations of the weaker and smaller members of the global trading community.

The bilateral and regional trade agreements which are being signed in the meantime are a temporary device, which present dangers to a rules-based global system.

The risk must be prevented that countries will see the financial and economic crisis as a signal to insulate themselves from global trade, through protectionist barriers.

Commonwealth countries are more integrated with the global economy than other countries, and more dependent on the efficient working of the global trading system.

A common message of commitment to openness – from both business and government – would be a powerful one.

The third is youth.

By 2015, there will be 3 billion people on the planet under the age of 25.

Are we ready for them?

Are there anything like enough jobs and creative opportunities ready for them?

All over the Commonwealth, we see the flower of youth withered by the unforgiving blasts of reality – those of unemployment, marginalisation, disenchantment, and more.

That is why Heads of Government will be paying particular attention to youth ‘mainstreaming’ (that is, a youth consideration and budget for every field of government activity), and youth enterprise this week.

The aim now is to upgrade our current pilot programme – the Commonwealth Youth Credit Initiative – into something with more government support, more business support, and more integration between its component parts of skills development, funding, and mentoring.

We already have significant sums of money on the table from an Asian and an African bank for a pioneering venture, with government support.

We seek partners and collaborators, and I urge any of you who care for the youth that will inherit our Commonwealth, to be in touch with me or with our Youth Affairs Division in the Commonwealth.

Ladies and gentlemen, this gathering represents an extraordinary coming-together.

More so, does our wider Commonwealth.

I have spoken of our inherent interconnectedness and of its natural result: that we work in partnership.

This partnership has a special meaning in the Commonwealth of Partnership, on five continents.

The model of partnership we devise is in its nature a global model.

I thank you, partners.

ENDS