Last evening the William Demas Lecture was presented by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB). Mr. Paul “P.B.” Scott delivered a lecture focussed on the various constraints that are holding back the economic development of the Caribbean. He has first had knowledge of many of these given his role as CEO, Chair and Principal Shareholder of the Musson Group, a large Caribbean group active in the food, pharmaceuticals, information technology, and insurance sectors.
His messages…
- the region must find ways to quickly increase the level of technology investment to address the issue of low productivity.
- Protectionism is costly and is holding the region back from achieving anything close to the scale industry will require to compete in the future. Often this protectionism is based on out-of-date colonial laws that have no purpose today.
- Scale can be achieved through regional cooperation without infringing on national identities and notions of pride
- The Caribbean has a labour shortage and must look more seriously at welcoming immigrants and facilitating movement of labour.
You can stream the full lecture from the link below.