Haiti seeks investment from CARICOM businesses

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Thursday July 7, 2011 - President Michel Martelly has issued an urgent call to businessmen in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to invest in Haiti to help create wealth for that country’s development and reconstruction.

He has assured that in collaboration with the private and public sectors in Haiti, he was creating the necessary conditions for his country to become a natural destination for foreign investments.

Haiti was on the verge of beginning the trade in goods aspect of the CARICOM Single Market when the earthquake struck.

President Martelly said that in 2009 the total sum of direct investments was about US$400 million, most of it from the telecommunications sector. He said he was hopeful that in 10 years, with the new policies in place, that amount would reach US$4 billion.

“We believe in investments and its capacity to contribute to build a solid and correct vision of the future of Haiti. We believe in human capacity and in education because it is through educated men, women and children with a same vision, that we will be able to build this future as dreamed by Toussaint Louverture and Alexandre Petion,” he said.

The Haitian President has expressed gratitude to CARICOM for the preferential arrangement for some Haitian products entering the CARICOM market. The three-year, non–reciprocal preferential arrangement took effect from January 1 this year, following agreement at the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) in December 2010.