Categorized | National News

OPEN THE ECONOMY

Chief Financial Officer of PharmaChem Technologies, Kevin D. Seymour  is  trumpeting  the numerous benefits the country stands to reap from becoming a full member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

“What I think [is] the WTO is going to open up and liberalize our market places; I think we have been sheltered for a very long time,” he said.

“I know my friends in the legal industry [aren’t] going to like this, but they are partly the blame for it. They don’t want to have foreign lawyers coming in and practicing law in this jurisdiction,” he added.

“I know that was a mistake,  because it cost us dearly in terms of the mutual fund and investment company industry which took flight, very similar to the insurance industry which prior to that took flight.  

“And these types of industries are all about relationships, if you don’t have relationships with the guys on Wall Street and London and the rest of it, [not] much business will come your way.  

Speaking  on the Love 97 Radio Show “Issues of the Day” in Freeport, Grand Bahama, Mr Seymour said “We need to open our minds up and start thinking about liberalizing trade in this country as opposed to being closed shop and a few people reaping the benefits of it all.”

As for the ease of doing business, the accountant suggested the proper vetting be put in place before attracting investors to the country. 

“The Bahamas is God’s garden in my view and there’s a lot of people around the world, including some ill-intentioned people who would like to come here, and exploit what we we have, he said.”

“While I fully agree from the perspective of ease of doing business and having a fully transparent process, I think it’s going to be critical to balance that off with the proper vetting of the type of investors that we are looking to do business in this country. 

“Because unfortunately there are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there and those are not the kind of investors that we would like to attract to The Bahamas,” he said.

He suggested that to improve the ease of doing business, politicians must step back and listen to the recommendations of the experts. 

“The reality is, in The Bahamas, and I’ve seen this with successive governments, a person could be a lowly accountant like myself, and then they are fortunate enough to be elected into office and all of a sudden they are imbued with this phenomenal knowledge that things need to happen.

“Rather than stepping back and saying I know my limitations, let me let some people who are versed in this and do this every day and have been doing this for a long time, take the lead.

“And I will listen to the recommendations that they make and I’ll be the mouth piece for them as opposed to me being the hero to say look what I’ve done for you people in The Bahamas.”  

The Bahamian government is looking at ascension to the WTO in 2019.

Written by Jones Bahamas

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