FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) and the Bahamas
By Alice Bain - the Abaconian - 15 August 2002

Negotiations concerning the Bahamas' candidacy for the Free Trade Area of the Americas are still ongoing despite fitful noises from the new administration in Nassau that our participation in the FTAA is by no means a certainty. Rick Lowe of the Nassau Institute policy think-tank commented on the proceedings.

"At the Nassau Institute, we are in favour of free trade"but we are NOT in favour of more government regulations. Right now, the Bahamian Government is sending representatives to FTAA negotiations every month. Some of these are "civil society" representatives picked from the community to represent the government"but whether they work for the government directly or not, all of these people are sworn to secrecy and not allowed to speak to anyone about the content of the negotiations. This isn"t right. If the government would have a public forum to discuss this, then we as Bahamian citizens would be able to say I need to be prepared in this or that way," but they"re not.

"In addition, the United States has been beating everyone down to join the FTAA and drop import tariffs, and then they themselves have turned around and put tariffs on steel imports! I think that people are losing faith in the governments" ability to manage national economies, and the governments are realizing this and attempting to make themselves more useful"which is what the FTAA is about."

Mr. Lowe believes that the Bahamas will survive the process of globalization. We will all need to become much more competitive though, as the protection of central planning is lifted. Our economy minus the banking complex is based around the tourism industry which has been competing internationally since its inception. So it is unlikely that this aspect will be heavily impacted.

However, Mr. Lowe takes issue with the shroud of secrecy surrounding the FTAA. Globalization will, one way or another, profoundly change the way we do business here in the Bahamas"and the Bahamian Government is doing the populace a disservice by denying them as much lead time as is possible to prepare for these changes.