Elizabeth Morgan | Can foreign languages be a barrier to international trade?

For years, members of the Jamaican private sector have been identifying foreign languages as a barrier to exporting with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean where official languages are Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Jamaica is an English-speaking country. No, the official language of Jamaica is not patois.

As a small developing country, Jamaica is trade dependent. In 2022, the country’s trade (export/import of goods and services) to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio was about 73 per cent. Jamaica’s exports of goods and services as a percentage of GDP were about 28 per cent and imports of goods and services as a percentage of GDP were about 45 per cent. Our private sector does not appear to have a problem importing goods and services from around the world in any language.

We now have goods imported into Jamaica with instruction inserts only in Spanish and cars imported with instruction manuals and vocal information only in Japanese. A large quantity of goods is imported from China and Chinese workers come to Jamaica. Nurses from Cuba are also coming to work here. Apparently, in these situations, Chinese and Spanish are not problems.

Yet, our private sector exporters are having difficulty exporting goods and services to countries which are not English-speaking. It seems Jamaican exporters would prefer to only do business with English-speaking countries in CARICOM, which excludes Haiti and Suriname, and with the USA and Britain.

In addition to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Jamaica benefits from a trade arrangement with Canada, which is bilingual – English and French. All products must be labelled in English and French. Jamaica is in a trade agreement with the European Union (EU), which has 24 official languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. In a country such as Belgium, the product might have to be labelled in two languages, Flemish and French.

Jamaica and other CARICOM partners are looking at expanding exports to Africa, India and China. Well, Africa is a continent with a very high linguistic diversity, having European languages and numerous national and regional languages. India has two official languages, English and Hindi, and China’s official language is Mandarin.

Jamaica is having difficulty using trade agreements with Latin America and with the EU, and if trading goods is a problem, can you imagine trading services, including tourism, which requires communicating in a foreign language!

It has been proposed for years that Jamaica should require Spanish as a second language, but this has not happened. As it is now, children are having difficulty learning and passing English in the CXC examinations.

LANGUAGE BARRIER IS REAL

However, from my reading, it is recognised that foreign languages can pose barriers in international trade. Believe it or not, there is actually a Language Barrier Index (LBI). In an article in Economic Letters from 2011 titled ‘Do Language barriers affect trade?’, it is stated:

“Language barriers are a significant deterrent to trade between countries. A new variable, the Language Barrier Index (LBI), quantifies international language barriers by measuring the dissimilarity between the main languages of trading partners. The LBI is essentially a measure of linguistic ‘distance’, similar to geographic distance, as a cost to trade. The strength of the LBI lies in capturing more detailed distinctions of linguistic proximity than the standard binary variable.”

A January 2021 article by Alistair Binks in Insights on ‘Language Barriers and Global Trade’ states that language barriers can, at best, cause confusion, and, at worst, cause offence. To build a company brand in foreign markets relies on communicating the brand message consistently and effectively in the languages of the markets.

Binks says that “Language barriers can affect global trading hugely”. Those wanting to trade in foreign language markets should have a communications strategy which takes into account the need to hire translators and interpreters or to have staff proficient in the foreign language. It is also necessary to know the markets and their traditions and cultural sensitivities.

OVERCOMING LANGUAGE BARRIERS

For us in Jamaica, we can, therefore, acknowledge that foreign languages can be barriers to trade. However, as a country, which is trade dependent and needing to increase exports of goods and services and to diversify markets, language is a barrier that we must overcome. This includes mastering English, learning a second foreign language, for example, Spanish, and developing a communications strategy for the foreign markets to be accessed.

Language services are available. The Language Training Centre, for example, actually provides translation and interpreting services to the business community.

Language services have to be included in the business strategy and in the cost of production and trade.

Elizabeth Morgan is a specialist in international trade policy and international politics. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com