SRC Trading Thoughts
The SRC Trading Thoughts Column is a bimonthly issue produced at the SRC in which we, or contributing authors, provide critical views and thoughts on issues of ongoing interest in trade and investment, with a particular focus on the Caribbean.
If you would like to contribute as an author, please contact us.
Sign up for the SRC Trading Thoughts here.
What COVID-19 Teaches About Caribbean Vulnerability and Resilience
Jan Yves Remy, Chelcee Brathwaite and Alicia Nicholls The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is making the global economy sick. Like the pathological disease itself which has been declared a pandemic, COVID-19 has invaded the global economic bloodstream, placing its vital organs in distress, with no immediate cure. Production chains are being disrupted, international travel is shrinking, oil prices are falling, food security concerns are heightening, foreign direct investment is contracting, currencies are plunging, stock markets are crashing. Whether large or small, no country is immune from this contagion. Caribbean states are no strangers to cataclysmic events which halt entire economies,…
Read more »
A WTO Investment Facilitation Agreement: Any added value for the Caribbean?
Alicia Nicholls The majority of World Trade Organization (WTO) Members have this month commenced negotiations to conclude a binding multilateral agreement on investment facilitation for development. The negotiations, which have received the support of the global business community, seek to facilitate investment flows between economies in a sustainable and pro-development manner. To date, one hundred WTO Members, including four CARICOM Member States, have endorsed the Joint Statement Initiative on Investment Facilitation for Development. Essentially, Member States will be negotiating the investment equivalent of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). Caribbean countries are largely net foreign direct investment (FDI) importers, that is,…
Read more »
The Art of the US-China Trade Deal
Chelceé Brathwaite Over the past 18 months China and the United States of America (US) have been embroiled in a trade war. That trade war is the result of escalations in tensions surrounding alleged unfair trade practices by China, such as forced technology transfers, currency manipulation and others. By the end of 2019, the USA had imposed tariffs on US$550 billion worth of Chinese goods and China had retaliated likewise with tariffs on US$185 billion worth of American goods. Apart from the repercussions felt by both economies including a sharp decline in bilateral trade, higher prices for consumers and trade…
Read more »
Engaging the Caribbean Diaspora for Trade and Sustainable Development
Alicia Nicholls Some four million people of Caribbean descent live outside of the region, according to data from the United Nation’s Population Division. Persons of Caribbean descent can be found across the world, but their main hubs are in the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), Canada and parts of continental Europe, such as France and The Netherlands. With regard to emigrant stock as a percentage of their national populations, the percentage for Caribbean countries in 2013 varied from as ‘low’ as 11% in the Dominican Republic to as high as 103% for the Commonwealth of Dominica. In their…
Read more »
My Journey South: Tracing developments on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Latin America and the Caribbean
By Chelceé Brathwaite Artificial Intelligence (AI) in South America – Setting the Bar for the Caribbean While some still consider AI to be beyond the grasp of developing countries, our South American neighbours have been shattering that stereotype. AI is being deployed in a number of their endeavours: to speed up artefact findings in Peru; to increase crop yields in Colombian rice fields through AI-powered platforms; to boost security and enhance customer service in Brazil’s banking sector; to create vegan alternatives with the same taste and texture as animal-based foods in Chile’s food industry; to predict school dropouts and teenage…
Read more »