The State Of Shipping In The Caribbean

We on the margin have for a long time been supporters of the idea of ferries in the Caribbean. In our view one of the most serious barriers to regional integration and the creation of a single market and economy, is the sheer difficulty faced by an individual attempting to move around the Caribbean. Moving people and goods from island to island is hugely difficult, and that has several knock on effects in the economies of the region.

In Europe it is possible to drive on to a ferry in Scotland and be in Ireland a couple of hours later driving YOUR car on Irish roads, all for the price of a ferry fare. It is possible to ship container loads of merchandise/products/food/whatever on the same ferry without even taking them off of the truck! When you contrast this ease of movement with the situation in the Caribbean it’s pathetic.

Move a car? Sorry you only have one seat on LIAT (world’s most expensive low cost carrier) and 50lbs of baggage, and when we get to our destination we are greeted by Immigration officers and Customs Officer who seem to have difficulty with the concept of people wanting to travel to another island. There was a brief moment of hope during the Cricket World Cup when we had the single space, but that seems to have separated back into the default position of fragmentation.

President of the CDB Prof. Compton Bourne, touched on these issues recently in a speech where he highlighted the difficulty in moving goods from areas with excess productive capacity to areas with demand for those goods.

“There are countries in the region that have considerable food production capacity, but their arrangements for trade in the region are far
from adequate.”

This made it very difficult to supply the markets that are experiencing shortages or to provide a cheaper source of commodities to those markets with the existing arrangements, he argued.

“First of all, shipping is very poor within the region,” he charged. “Our shipping arrangements are largely geared towards bringing commodities from outside the region to the region, rather than moving commodities between the various islands and countries in the Caribbean.

“Secondly, our port facilities in the main for CARICOM trade are atrocious, often under-staffed, often not provided with the requisite phyto-sanitary inspection facilities and sometimes characterised
by a bit of hostility towards the trade. . . .”

For the single market and economy to become a reality, there needs to be ease of trade, and ease of travel, at the moment it is easier to get items out of a furniture store in Miami than it is to get it from a furniture manufacturer in Guyana. To speak of a single economic space is a farce unless this situation is rectified.

Marginal