EDITORIAL - Mr Brown got this one right

We don't care much for Arnaldo Brown's views on the Constituency Development Fund (CDF). The young MP is an unabashed supporter of the fund and, therefore, of political pork and the inevitable politics of patronage that accompanies it.

By contrast, Mr Brown, the junior foreign affairs and foreign trade minister, in a July 10 contribution to Parliament's Sectoral Debate, gave a rather evolved and eminently sensible and contextual explanation of Jamaica's trade relations with its Caribbean Community (CARICOM) partners and the arrangements for resolving disputes in this single market.

We commend it to private-sector leaders and, especially, to Gregory Mair, the opposition spokesman on trade and commerce. For Mr Brown's intervention was fact-based, devoid of the hyperbolic emotiveness that has characterised too much of what, recently, has masqueraded as analyses of Jamaica's trade deficit with the community.

Jamaica, on the face of it, has a significant problem with its visible trade in CARICOM. Last year, it exported a mere US$68 million worth of goods to the community. It imported more than US$1 billion, for a trade deficit of US$957 million.

As Mr Brown noted, this is often interpreted in Kingston as a structural deficiency of the regional integration movement that operates to the benefit of Trinidad and Tobago, which accounts for around 90 per cent of Jamaica's trade with CARICOM, reflected mostly in our import of petroleum products. However, CARICOM accounts for about a fifth of Jamaica's overall trade deficit. We import much from everybody and export little.

Credible energy policy needed

It may be true that with its oil and gas, Trinidad and Tobago provides its manufacturers with energy 'subsidies', against which their Jamaican counterparts, who pay US$0.40 for a kilowatt-hour of electricity, cannot compete.

But the effect of any subsidy by Port-of-Spain is exacerbated and exaggerated by our own failure, over many years, to develop and implement a credible energy policy. Jamaica's power plants, for the most part, are old, inefficient and burn expensive oil. Economic policy, too, in Jamaica, has been deficient, characterised by wide fiscal deficits, which, for several years, fuelled high interest rates and sapped the entrepreneurial spirit.

All of these, however, do not presume that there are not opportunities for Jamaica in CARICOM. Nor do we, as does Mr Brown, believe that we exploit with enough vigour all available market opportunities, although it is likely that our performance in services is undercounted.

Mr Brown makes the point of Jamaica's proximity to Haiti, a CARICOM member with a population of 10 million. "We are not doing enough to explore or penetrate this market," he said.

We agree. It is, however, easier to mourn and whinge than fix the fiscal and other structural deficiencies in the Jamaican economy such as the price of energy, labour productivity, and security.

This does not say that there are not problems to be dealt with in CARICOM, as there are in most trade groups. That is why, as is the case with CARICOM, they have dispute-resolution mechanisms such as the Caribbean Court of Justice. It is not enough, though, merely to assert that they exist.

"The first stage of dispute settlement requires concrete evidence," said Mr Brown.

Again, he is right.

By now, Mr Mair and company should have got the point.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.