Antigua Open For Business

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Business News

Monday, 11 June 2012 02:29

By Colin James

Antigua St John's - Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer has declared Antigua & Barbuda an investment haven as he urged the Florida business community to invest in the country at a time when the economy has come to grips with trade liberalization and globalization.

“Bring your investment and come,” he told a tourism and trade mission breakfast reception organized by the Tampa Bay International Business Council last Friday.

“Antigua and Barbuda is open for business.”

Highlighting medical tourism using the soon-to-be-constructed Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Cancer Centre in St John’s as example – Spencer said “offshore education can stimulate and grow the economy.”

He said his government has developed medical tourism, which he described “as a multi-million-dollar industry.”

While declaring that the tiny island nation “has an open economy”, the PM, however, cautioned that his government will “fight against certain aspects of trade liberalization and globalization.”

Although he did not say what aspects of the economy will be protected, Spencer said Antigua & Barbuda “is the most dependent state (in the Caribbean) on tourism and services.

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“As a small developing country, Antigua & Barbuda has enhanced its potential with export services,” he added.

He told the Tampa Bay business pool that there can be reciprocal benefits with the exporting of “some aspects of their” portfolios.

“Antigua & Barbuda is the gateway to the Eastern Caribbean,” Spencer trumpeted.

Commenting on the often controversial trade liberalization and globalization issues, the Antiguan leader admitted that both are complex processes but noted it could not be “concluded that (they were) unsuccessful.”

He said that trade liberalization “is an evolving process” and “how to decipher fact from fiction” will be important.

He said developing countries “have been placed at a disadvantage” but he quickly noted that “higher incomes can be earned by developed countries.”

Spencer told the gathering that with the expansion of the V C Bird International Airport, direct service from Tampa is a possibility.

“I look forward to the day…,” he said.

Top officials of the Antigua & Barbuda Investment Authority and the country’s tourism authority were also present at the half-day session, which was attended by a wide cross-section of the Tampa-Miami business fraternity.

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