ECONOMIST PROFESSOR AVINASH PERSAUD has suggested that Caribbean nations no longer conform solely to international regulations if they were to protect their financial centres and become competitive.
Saying that the region “is deeply uncompetitive because we are a deeply regulated economy”, the professor instead suggested that the Caribbean develop “a new business model”.
“Unless we get trade policy right, the Caribbean will be locked into the stalemate that it is in currently. . . . At the moment the Caribbean has no business model and it is simply complying and complying,” he said.
“There has been a substantial increase, a raft of new compliance and regulatory measures. The Group of 20 [major economies] has found it difficult to come up with measures that will control other G20 countries but they find it easy to come up with control measures for countries not in the G20, and that is a particular issue for Caribbean financial centres,” said Persaud.
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