Contributing Author Dickson Igwe
Follow the capital trail through the behavior of the capital mix and its value supply chains.
It is important to assess how much of the Capital Mix – wealth generating assets in the Virgin Islands- with its associated supply and value chains, is in public hands or government, and how much is in the private sector, including non-profit organizations.
What capital assets do alien interests own? How does capital respond to specific actions from managers and investors? How does the local culture affect the mix? The capital mix decides the nature, scope, and direction of the Virgin Islands economy and wider society. The effective management of capital drives national prosperity.
The optimum use of capital: land, human resources and technology in terms of employment and management opportunities for natives, and profit share for local investors and businesspersons is crucial for economic prosperity.
Are the Virgin Islands value and supply chains – the stages in the flow of capital from input to output, adding value as it gets to the consumer? Is the capital mix appropriately defined, and adopted by government and stakeholders, to increase national output, or GDP and national revenue?
Can the country’s wealth generating assets – capital mix- be accurately valued? Is there a method of valuation? Which sector – identified by its own unique capital mix- of the economy, for example, tourism, financial services, agriculture and internal market, has potential to increase in value through added human effort? What value and supply chains offer greater revenues to their various sectors?
One factor of the country’s wealth generating assets is the increase in revenues earned from various sectors of the economy from quarter to quarter and from the value and supply chains within those sectors. A sector is composed of value and supply chains: in effect the businesses and organizations that operate in the sector and the various stages from start to finish of providing a product or service.
Especially important is how these value and supply chains rise in value as they move through the different stages of production or service, up until a product or service is in the marketplace. That flow of capital decides the nature, scope, and productivity of the Virgin Islands economy.
Dickson Igwe is an education official in the Virgin Islands. He is also a national sea safety instructor. He writes a national column across media and has authored a story book on the Caribbean: ‘The Adventures of a West Indian Villager’. Dickson is focused on economics articles, and he believes economics holds the answer to the full economic and social development of the Caribbean. He is of both West African and Caribbean heritage. Dickson is married with one son.
