Forum Haiti : Des Idées et des Débats sur l'Avenir d'Haiti


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Forum Haiti : Des Idées et des Débats sur l'Avenir d'Haiti
Forum Haiti : Des Idées et des Débats sur l'Avenir d'Haiti
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Lavi chè ap kale tout rejyion Karayib la.

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Message  Sasaye Jeu 6 Mar 2008 - 12:05

CARIBBEAN TRADE

Cost crisis hitting Caribbean trade

The Caribbean is facing a cost crisis: As fuel prices rise, food and import prices follow, and the trade industry between the islands and South Florida is being hit hard.

Posted on Thu, Mar. 06, 2008
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com



Lavi chè ap kale tout rejyion Karayib la. 469-02caribeconomy13_mhl_cpj.embedded.prod_affiliate.56
CARL JUSTE / MIAMIHERALD STAFF

President/CEO of River Terminal Services, Inc., Munir Mourra, stands over goods, items, and containers that are waiting to be shipped to Haiti, but due to high costs and bureaucracy in Haiti these items remain on his dock.


  • And before Anya Seymour packed her shopping shoes and hopped a flight to Miami, the Bahamian businesswoman had begun to feel the effects of hard times: Prepaid phone cards that once flew off the shelves of her Nassau store were suddenly a hard sell.
    But the real shock for Seymour came as she recently visited her usual shopping haunts lining Northwest 12th Avenue in Allapattah's wholesale district.
    ''Prices have gone up!'' said Seymour, her SUV's trunk propped open and her voice full of disappointment as a store clerk prepped her purchases for shipping. ``I'll have to raise my prices by at least 25 percent.''
    As higher oil prices spike costs in South Florida and elsewhere in the United States, the Caribbean is being hit hard. The cost of importing goods such as basic food items -- bread, eggs, milk, meats and produce -- has risen by up to 40 percent in the past year alone.
    The effect on the Caribbean is rebounding to South Florida, where wholesalers, truckers, freight consolidators and others who make a living off Caribbean trade are reporting significant drops in sales among their island customers.
    ''Business is slow,'' said Joe Rhoden, a Jamaican American whose North Miami-Dade County freight firm services Jamaica and parts of the Eastern Caribbean. ``We are definitely seeing an absence of certain customers . . . the common trader, who comes up from the islands to do their shopping.''
    Compounding the fears is the slowdown in the U.S. economy, expected to depress U.S. tourism in the Caribbean and the remittance payments that Caribbean nationals working in the United States send back home. And with many island nations' local currency fixed to the U.S. dollar, the weakening greenback means less purchasing power for Caribbean nations as well.
    TOURISM TROUBLES
    Tourism, which provides nearly one of every seven jobs in the Caribbean, is of particular concern. The United States supplies more than half the region's annual visitors.
    ''Recession in the U.S. means fewer people taking holidays, because incomes are falling,'' said Ralph Henry, a Trinidad-based consultant working with the 15-member Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, to alleviate pressure from rising costs.
    When Caribbean leaders meet in Nassau this week, what they call the crisis of rising costs will occupy the gathering's agenda.
    After an emergency summit in December, nations like Jamaica and Antigua reduced or eliminated some import duties to relieve the pinch. And now trade ministers plan to propose at the meeting a region-wide list of items to be excluded from import duties.
    But such measures are only temporary, argue consumers, who are clamoring for more relief.
    During a recent town hall meeting in the Turks and Caicos, angry consumers demanded to know how Premier Michael Misick planned to alleviate skyrocketing prices in an island chain where a gallon of Tropicana orange juice sells for $12.99 and a loaf of U.S. bread costs $4.50. They complained that import duties on baby food and bread were 25 percent, compared to 10 percent for dog food.
    In neighboring Haiti, as well, fears of a famine have parliament members demanding answers. The prime minister and finance minister met twice with parliament recently to discuss how to help Haitians feed themselves after price increases and last year's natural disasters that wiped out crops and increased inflation from 7.9 percent in September to 11 percent today.
    Staples like plantains now sell for 75 U.S. cents -- up from 10 U.S. cents -- per piece, while a 110-pound bag of flour sells for $42.50 -- more than double a year ago.
    Haitian President René Préval has been criticized in the Haitian press for reportedly responding to the problem by saying he's no miracle worker and the Haitian people shouldn't expect any. The only way to lower prices, he said, is for Haiti to relaunch its domestic production. His comments are alleged to have been made during a two-day January visit with residents in Haiti's Central Plateau.
    But some are calling for more immediate solutions, beginning with easing a tough government campaign to collect taxes at Haiti's seaports and land borders. Some Haitian lawmakers and business owners say it is adding to the misery, noting that in recent months food staples coming from South Florida to Haiti have sharply declined because of ship owners' frustrations with the added bureaucracy.
    ''There is a crisis brewing, and it's grangou, hunger,'' said Rudolph Boulos, vice president of the Senate who is meeting with importers in search of solutions. ``We have to figure out how we can prevent this from becoming a major disaster.''
    Merchants in the Caribbean and South Florida say the main culprit is energy: High oil and gasoline prices are driving up transportation costs. And, the rush toward alternative energy sources like ethanol is luring many farmers away from food crops like beans and toward corn, which can be profitably turned into ethanol.
    In the past year, Rhoden, the freight consolidator who contracts the vessels, says his shipping fees have gone up $500 on a 40-foot container, an increase he has been forced to pass on to customers.
    Commodities wholesalers, faced with their own cost increases and in some cases shortages from their suppliers, also are charging more.
    ''I just was speaking to one of my suppliers, and he said he probably won't grow beans at all next year; he will plant wheat and corn because there is more profit for him,'' said Albert Trujillo, a wholesale commodities supplier who is giving his 130 employees earlier vacations, hoping to avoid layoffs. ``It's created a domino effect.''
    So Trujillo, already facing a decline in his once-lucrative exports to Haiti, has raised his prices, too. A 100-pound bag of rice has spiked from $18 or $20 to $28; a 110-pound bag of rice now sells for $33, up from $24.
    OTHER FACTORS
    National Farmers Union President Tom Buis said that while high fuel costs and the ethanol boom are to blame for some of the food price increases, they are not the sole reasons. The U.S. rice and wheat crops last year suffered from weather problems, and other costs have risen as well.
    ''Everything has gone up: land costs, seed prices, equipment costs,'' said Buis, whose Denver-based farmers' advocacy group boasts a membership of more than 250,000.
    Add to this China's appetite for commodities, and the end result is the sticker shock Caribbean consumers are feeling in the grocery aisles.
    ''They all like to pass the blame to farmers. Farmers shouldn't be the only people in America who don't get a decent return on their investment,'' Buis said. ``It's strictly supply and demand that drives the prices up.''
    Henry, the CARICOM consultant, said the Caribbean's problems also are deeper than rising fuel prices. The islands rely too much on imported food -- and the United States, its largest trading partner -- at a time when China and India also are increasing their demand for food.
    ''We now have to wake up to the reality of feeding ourselves,'' said Henry, who as far back as the 1970s advocated a regional food plan.
    ``We have ignored this and assumed that cheap food . . . would be readily available from North America. That is something of the past.''
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Message  Rodlam Sans Malice Sam 8 Mar 2008 - 20:00

What is really troubling in this situation is the indifference of the so called "leaders" of these countries.Every day the situation is getting worse ,but the politicians are just making speeches and promises.No action is taken to diminish the growth of their population ;to increase the productivity of the sectors that are essentials to alleviate the sufferings of the poor.

In haiti they 're talking about the poor living conditions in the slums ;the scarcity of food and water ; the deterioration of the environment ,but for God sake what are they doing?Zilch

Yes, the're promising 20000 new jobs,but where do they expect to find the funds necessary to create these jobs if the national budget is financed by the International institutions like FMI, BID which they condemn.

Listening to these politicians one has the impression they just talk to put the people to sleep so they can finish their mandate.
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