The Dominica services sector’s contribution to the island’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 2008 and 2010 was approximately 50 percent; and close to 80 per cent in terms of total exports.
This was revealed by the executive director of the Dominica Coalition of Service Industries (DCSI) Lester Riviere as he spoke at the recent official launch of Dominica’s National Export Strategy.
Riviere said the DCSI had already registered 220 service providers, and had signed memoranda of understanding with six existing associations.
However he acknowledged that the Coalition faced significant challenges in its attempts to cover the diverse spread of services within the sector and the resultant vast diversity of interests and stake holders.
Riviere suggested that his organization needed government help to effectively export Dominican services regionally and further afield through the Economic Partnership Agreement Dominica and other Caribbean countries signed with the European Union.
“Government needs to provide financial backing for private sector initiatives as much of our service providers don’t have the financial capacity or the base to undertake any growth and development activities” he told the launch of his organization and the National Export Strategy.
Access to affordable finance was as key ingredients identified by Riviere as necessary for a competitive services sector.
“We have to come to a point in our banking system where banks recognize the ideas of firms as collateral … so there is a need for innovative approaches to financing,” he said.
(Source http://www.caribbean360.com/index.php/business/561455.html#axzz1pDSTIK6D)
