David Jessop

A little over 10 days ago, a privately owned British company, Edrington, acquired a majority shareholding in Brugal, the leading rum producer in the Dominican Republic and one of the largest international rum brands after Havana Club and Bacardi.

At around the same time, Angostura of Trinidad completed its takeover bid for Lascelles deMercado, the parent company of J. Wray and Nephew, the owner of Jamaica's Appleton rum brand.

The two deals - possibly as much as US$1.2 billion in the case of Brugal and around US$730 million in the case of Lascelles - were based on the premise that there are globally competitive Caribbean brands.

Tellingly, the markets envisaged for these Caribbean products go beyond the traditional.

developing sales

Edrington is looking to develop sales in Russia and Eastern Europe. CL Financial, Angostura's parent company, intends using its global distribution network CL World Brands, to develop sales of Jamaican rum across the world.

Both developments could well presage a still more significant opportunity if the region's tourism industry and the brand 'Caribbean' that it is promoting, can piggy-back on the many tens of millions of dollars of marketing money that the spirits industry will deploy in penetrating new markets for Caribbean products.

What these business ventures convey and others like them undertaken by Jamaica Producers, GraceKennedy, Sandals, Super-Clubs, Goddard Enterprises, and Demerara Distillers, is a message that is sometimes not understood in the region. There is absolutely no reason why the region's products and services sector, and by extension governments and institutions cannot be globally competitive.

With value-added agricultural products like rum, with its tourism, its music industry, its financial services sector and even its globally praised institutions like the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank or the Caribbean Regional Nego-tiating Machinery (CRNM), the region can demonstrate success and that smallness is an irrelevance.

On January 29, Jamaica's Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, spoke very frankly about this in the context of the soon-to-be-signed economic partnership agreement (EPA) with Europe. He accused critics of the agreement of failing to escape the psychological shackles of slavery.

Addressing a conference on capital markets, he observed that there were two types of critic of the agreement: Those who think the region can exist on its own, and those who think the world owes the region something. "There are persons," he said, "who believe that the preference we have enjoyed ... must remain in perpetuity."

The region needed, he suggested, to look outward for opportunities. "We spend too much time competing with one another, versus competing together with the rest of the world."

An inward-looking Caribbean seeking to produce only for itself, PM Golding added, was not viable.

"We don't have the market strength to support efficient production," he said.

two distinct caribbeans

"Our economies cannot survive on their own. Our economies cannot grow if the economic space is limited to what we have in the region. We have to strengthen our legs. It is time for the countries of the Caribbean to stand up on those legs like grown men and women and be prepared to walk into the future."

What the prime minister's remarks, the global strides being taken by Caribbean companies and some of the public and private criticism of the EPA in the region suggest, is that two distinct Caribbeans are emerging. One that is outward looking, with a willingness to embrace the world as it is, and another that is risk averse, and wants to continue to look inward, seeking comfort in inaction, academic study or bureaucratic solutions.

This is not to suggest that criticism of the thrust of the EPA is not valid, or that there should not be a full review of whether the negotiations met their political mandate. Rather, it is to argue that, personal enmities, the inter-regional institutional rivalries, and the sometimes overintense sense of Caribbean nationalism are in danger of distracting public-sector attention from why the EPA trade negotiations had to take place and the pressing matter of implementation.

The EPA requires government, and regional institutions to develop rapidly plans to encourage private-sector growth and competitiveness if the region is to take advantage of what is on offer. It also requires Europe to put the same political muscle that it used to force through the agreement into defining and delivering the development assistance it has boasted about.

In the former respect, there seems to be little awareness in the region of the high-level external concern that exists in Canada, the US and in Europe about the whether the region's institutional arrangements are able to deliver results at the pace at which change has to occur.

Among genuine friends of the region in the European Commission there is bemusement that some in the region may be trying to use the CRNM review now under way and suggestions that it exceeded its mandate, as a basis for its emasculation.

They point to the irony that nations like the United Kingdom and New Zealand are looking to it as the best model to help Africa and the Pacific conclude their negotiations with Europe.

While in the case of Canada, diplomats make clear that they are less than happy that they encouraged their prime minister to invest his political capital in pressing for free-trade negotiations with the Caribbean to begin this year.

They note that delay will probably have the consequence that Ottawa will now negotiate elsewhere.

political investments

The pace of economic globalisation means the opposing ideologies of the second half of the 20th century have given way in almost every nation to a recognition that the social models to which people and political parties aspire can only be paid for by well-regulated private-sector growth and gradual integration into the global economy.

Critical, therefore, to future success will be making work trade agreements and key mechanisms for structural change, like the Regional Development Fund. If they do not and government revenues fall, the social and political consequences will be severe.

In a recent speech in Jamaica, Laurence Duprey, the chairman of Colonial Life (CL), who describes himself as an economic nationalist, made clear that he believes the region has the ability to succeed. "If we have the right intellectual capital and we manage our resources well, then we don't have to be as poor as we are," said Duprey.

"We can distribute income more evenly so that it doesn't just reside with a few, because there will be enough to go around."

Put another way, private-sector led development, more open markets, a welcome for foreign capital and encouraging joint ventures requires, as Prime Minister Golding suggests, the confidence to walk towards the future. David Jessop is director of the Caribbean Council. Email: david. jessop@caribbean-council.org