BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – ONE of the major focal areas to be addressed during the 93rd Directors Meeting of the Caribbean Association of Industries and Commerce (CAIC), is the establishment of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Business Council that would represent the region’s entire private sector.
The two-day meeting, which began on February 5 in St. Kitts, identified the OECS Business Council as a critical organization to ensure that businesses of the region get an increased opportunity to be represented at regional and international levels. The new initiative is expected to benefit a number of private businesses and service providers including Chambers of Industry and Commerce, hotel and tourism authorities, contractors associations and regional boards of accountants and lawyers.
Director of the St. Kitts-Nevis Chamber of Industry Manufacturing Division Carol Evelyn told SKNVibes that the OECS Business Council is very important as it brings private sector organizations “under the same umbrella” and would provide collective bargaining and regional representation among other benefits.
“The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank then would recognize us and at OECS Heads meeting, we would be given observer status and we would have a more meaningful and effective input into what is happening at the domestic and regional levels.
“Thus, if regional and or international bodies want to speak directly to the region’s business sector, they would deal directly with the council. This broadens the scope of reach with critical information and reduces the risk of only addressing one group at a time as it would now become that umbrella’s responsibility to disseminate the information to the members.
“Partnership like this is very important because instead of acting singularly with separate secretariats, we would now be under one umbrella and so we can pool all that money into one secretariat which would definitely help as far as easing the burden of individual companies having to make separate companies.”
Evelyn informed that during the meeting, three representatives from each OECS Member State would be nominated to serve on the Council and added that the finer details of the arrangements of the Council would soon be forthcoming.
Also on the CAIC agenda are the impacts of the global economic crisis on the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union and efforts of smaller nations to strengthen economic relations with Belize.
