Salutations:
ADDRESS BY
RT. HON. P. J. PATTERSON, P.C., Q.C., M.P.
PRIME MINISTER OF JAMAICA
AT THE
OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE G-15 TRADE EXHIBITION
TUESDAY, 1999 FEBRUARY 09
MONTEGO BAY FREEZONE
Today is a red-letter day for Jamaica.
Today, we witness the opening of the biggest and grandest International Trade
Exhibition, which this country has ever hosted.
We are grateful to the G-15 for affording us this opportunity.
The exhibitors here come not only from the G-15 countries representing all the regions
and continents of the world.
They include groups from CARICOM, North America, Japan and China.
I want to extend my own special welcome to all of you on behalf of the Government
and people of Jamaica.
I am confident that this Trade Exhibition will mark another important step in building
our trade and investment links.
The G-15 is a group with significant resources. In 1996, eleven members of the group
were among the top 50 exporters and importers of the world. Collectively, the G-15
countries account for about US$400 billion, or ten percent of world merchandise
exports.
Our population size, of 1.8 billion people or 30% of the world's people, account for
US$10 billion, or ten percent, of world imports. This is not a group, which can be
ignored.
In the South we have tended to downplay our strengths and resources and have too
narrowly focused on the North, to our detriment. No one who would have passed
through this exhibition, can entertain the slightest doubt that quality, excellence and
sophistication reside in abundance within our group.
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The industrial and technological prowess of our group will be on full display for all to
see.
I am pleased to note that trade among our member countries has been growing
significantly. Between 1990 and 1995 when world exports as a whole grew by only
30%, exports among members of our group grew by 170%.
The annual average rate of growth in intra-G15 exports is among the highest in the
world with a rate of 22% recorded between 1990-1995.
Our hope is that this exhibition will make the soil fertile for even greater growth in the
future.
The UNDP's Human Development Report of 1996, revealed two years ago that since the
early 1970s, the Least Developed Countries have suffered a cumulative decline of 50%
in their terms of trade. Real commodity prices in 1990 were 45% lower than they
were in 1980 and 10% lower than the worst prices during the Great Depression of
1932. The terms of trade for manufactured goods fell 35% during the 1970-1991
period.
But we don't have to go back that far to highlight how some of our members have
suffered with the decline of their commodity prices.
■ oil prices have dropped 40% since mid-1997
■ coffee by 44%, and
■ copper by 41 %
■ from mid-1997 to mid-1998 non-oil commodities on average declined
by 10.6%,
■ while agricultural raw materials fell by 12%;
• metals by 17.3%;
■ food and beverage by 10.1 %.
There is a logic to the combination of a summit and an exhibition. Both a logic and a
lesson.
The implicit message is that we in this group believe that we have to tackle two issues
at the same time. We have to make the point that development efforts will continue to
be frustrated in the G-15 countries if there is no fairer response by the North. At the
same time, and with even more vigour, we have to do all that we ourselves can do to
increase South-South cooperation and put our own economic house in order.
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We also have to pursue with even greater vigour, the policies, which make for
sustainable growth in trade and investments.
But sustainable growth cannot exist in a global crisis, which threatens to engulf the
world.
Latin America is a telling reminder that internal reforms, export-oriented development
and liberalisation and privatisation are simply not enough to produce sustainable
economic growth. Without heightened North-South cooperation, the future of each of
us in the global community is threatened.
We in the G-15 group are, once again, signalling to the world that we are incisive in
our criticisms of the shortcomings in the international economic and trading system, but
pro-active in terms of designing solutions. This is why it gives me particular pleasure
to be able to officially launch Jamaica's Trade Point Programme today.
The Trade Point Concept is an electronic Trade Network Initiative developed and
promoted by UNCTAD.
Since 1996 the Global Trade Point Network has become the major network of electronic
commerce to the developing world. It seeks to improve trade and business efficiencies
by utilising the means electronic technology, i.e. the Internet.
Today 120 countries have established Trade Points.
Essentially, the Trade Point concept has at its foundation six requirements for trade
efficiency:
■ telecommunications
■ business information
■ trade facilitation
■ customs
■ transport
■ banking and insurance
By providing a secure worldwide electronic network between developed and developing
countries, trade points function as enablers of trade efficiency by reducing the
transaction costs of conducting business, using the Internet.
Most countries in the system have adopted a joint public/private sector approach in
implementing their trade points. In this approach the parties act as partners/service
providers or customers, supporting the products and services provided by the trade
point.
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Partners may include banks and insurance companies, transportation companies, export
agencies, customs freight forwarders and Chambers of Commerce.
A trade point serves as a trade transaction Centre, a gateway to global networking and
a trade information Centre. We in Jamaica intend to utilise the trade point as a new
way of doing business.
As developing countries we have to be on the cutting edge of technology. We have to
adopt the most advanced and sophisticated ways of doing business. It has been
projected that sales of goods online will move from US$17 million in 1996 to US$176
billion by the Year 2000 - only a year away. Even today an estimated seven million
firms worldwide are appraised of business opportunities daily through the Trade Points
in 120 countries.
Jamaica wants to be in the vanguard of technological sophistication and efficiency. The
Jamaica Trade Point proposes to become the electronic umbrella through which
Jamaican companies can link into the world to promote their products and services, not
only among the Trade Point countries, but also globally through other strategic on-line
alliances to be established. In this way, Jamaican Trade Point will seek to add value to
the trade and investment process.
We shall have the pleasure of demonstrating our trade point to you today. We saved
the launch for this most august occasion in order to reflect the significance of the
project itself.
Jamaica's enthusiastic endorsement of the trade point concept shows that we, like the
rest of the developing world, are serious about doing everything in our power to
increase our efficiency, business facilitation, investment promotion and trade expansion.
The G-15 members are among the many countries which have embraced the global
trade point network as a state-of-the-art means of business. The South must do all it
can for itself. We must strengthen our own mechanisms of cooperation and
collaboration.
But we also call upon the North to support our efforts in the recognition that we are,
indeed, one global community.
Our prosperity is reciprocal and interdependent.
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