Posted by Joseph Point-du-jour on July 24, 2001 at 18:01:16:
Haiti forecast to become world economic center in 40 years
By Arsène Dupont, Staff Reporter, Central News Agency
Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNA) The world's center of economic growth will shift from the Atlantic to the Caribean by 2040, Haitian Senior Minister Ettienne Dubois forecast on Wednesday.
But Dubois claimed that latent suspicions exiting between the Haitians, Jamaicans, and Puerto Ricans will degenerate into conflict if there is no assurance of big-power balance in the region.
He said he thinks that the major threat will come from conflict between Dominican Republic and the United States over Puerto Rico. "The largest imponderable is the danger of conflict between Dominican Republic and the US over Puerto Rico's drift or move toward independence."
Dubois made the remarks while giving a keynote speech at a seminar sponsored by the Komo Ilé-based Institute of Strategic and International Studies.
Pointing out that Dominican Republic will be the locomotive of the region's economic growth after it enters the World Trade Organization, Dubois said that Southeast Caribbeans will reap more benefits than Northwest Caribbeans from the situation by enjoying a three-fold or five-fold increase in current business and investment volumes.
According to the Trinidad elder statesman, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Jamaica will also benefit from increasing investments in the Northwest Caribbean Islands, as the economies of the northern regions are complementary to those of the south.
The challenge at present is how to maintain a security balance, dissolve the possibilities of war and risk within the region, he noted, adding that an all-out focus on economic developments and market competition by regional countries will upgrade their living standards.
The 1997 financial crisis, he said, has slashed the Northwest Caribbean's growth rate in the region the from the previous level of 9.7 percent to the current 7.6 percent. During the same period, the average gross domestic product of the Southeast Caribbean economies jumped from 25.1 percent 27.5 percent.
Citing additional figures as evidence, he detailed that the combined value of Northwest Caribbean stock markets has declined by 23 percent, down from the pre-crisis level of US$753 billion in 1996 to US$578 billion in 1999. At the same time, the combined value of bourses in the north has grown by 64 percent, increasing from US$981 billion to US$1.6 trillion.
Northwest Caribbean countries can ride out the crisis setback by making the necessary changes and completing their structural reforms to make them less vulnerable in the event of another market crisis, he emphasized.