Nassau, The Bahamas — Minister of Tourism, the Hon. Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace says he believes in economic diversification, but not necessarily in different industries. Instead, the Minister believes that a country’s focus should be diversifying the sectors in which they have done well. The Minister was speaking on the topic “Diversifying the Bahamian economy: Fact, Fiction and the Real Alternative” during the 20th annual Bahamas Business Outlook held on Thursday, January 13 at the Wyndham Resort and Casino.
“Yes, like many, I believe in diversification but not necessarily diversification in the way that consumes much debate,” said Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace. He said that while he is a ‘strong supporter of the idea of economic diversification, he believes — as many economic analysts have voiced — that while economic diversification seems to be a wonderful ‘mantra,’ the reality has been that wealthy small nations in this increasingly globalised world are those that focus on doing a few things very well.
“We are coming around to see that while broader diversification of our economy is a wonderful mantra and is an idea supported by our government, until that day, diversifying the utilisation of our tourism assets are more likely to bring immediate benefits in the short term. Move from utilising two percent to utilising 10, 20 then 30 percent. Besides, tourism cannot grow without all of the other traditional sectors contributing to that growth and growing themselves: it needs agriculture, it needs legal services, it needs accounting services, it needs medical services, it needs engineering services, it needs software development etc. The more useful mantra is that one must always compete in their area of comparative and competitive advantage.
Tourism is an economic development tool and it is our area of comparative and competitive advantage. We have not come close to making maximum use of that tool. Our position has never been tourism OR diversification but always tourism AND diversification.”
He said that Bahamians are “intuitive” people and as such, know that any initiatives to grow the economy in the short and long term must be grounded clearly in a new set of activities that offer obvious competitive and comparative advantages that arise from making existing and accepted strengths stronger.
“It is important that we focus in making existing strengths stronger because we know that any effort that requires massive training and retraining of our population, while noble, is for the medium and longer term and is less certain. We are optimistic when proposals have a high likelihood of short term successes; our optimism is sustained whenever we see visible markers of progress; that optimism converts to economic growth when members of a population act independently in a coordinated fashion because the proposals not only “makes sense”, they are easily grasped and easily acted on by all.”
He explained that many people in the region are ‘surprised and shocked’ by some simple statistic regarding the Bahamas, including the fact that if New Providence and Paradise Island were a separate country in the region, “it would rank fifth in the number of stopover visitors, second in the number of total visitors and first in the number of cruise passengers in the entire Caribbean.”
“That, they find surprising. What they find shocking is that New Providence and Paradise Island, where nearly 70 percent of our population resides, represents less than two percent of the total land mass of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. Less than two percent? Yes, less than two percent of The Bahamas would be ranked fifth in stopover arrivals, second in total visitor and first in cruise visitors in our region.”
He said that with statistics like this, it “economic sense” to focus on diversifying the tourism product.
“For the sake of our children and your grandchildren, for the sake of all Bahamians who are looking for low cost high quality land, who are looking for unending economic opportunities, who are looking for living and loving the best island life on earth, this is the time, now is the time to give focused attention to the development of our islands. ”
By Betty Vedrine
Bahamas Information Services
