![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/caricom.jpg\" "\\"caricom\\"")
WASHINGTON, USA — The Organization of American States (OAS) and the US government have launched a project to establish small business development centres in five member states of CARICOM, an initiative that aims at helping to improve the competitiveness of small companies in Barbados, Belize, Jamaica, Dominica and St Lucia, especially those headed by women.<\/p>\n
The OAS secretary general, Jos\u00e9 Miguel Insulza, explained that Caribbean and Latin American countries \u201chave long recognized the importance of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) as major contributors to employment and growth within their communities, nations and the region as a whole\u201d and observed that \u201cdespite the important challenges the sector faces, it accounts for 70 percent of the jobs and more than 50 percent of GDP in the region. \u201c<\/p>\n
Insulza expressed his support to the project, given the fact that \u201cwith the right support and a structured, sustainable framework, these businesses can play an even more important role in the production network offering numerous opportunities for increased prosperity and poverty alleviation throughout the CARICOM region.\u201d<\/p>\n
The permanent representative of United States to the OAS, Ambassador Carmen Lomellin, agreed that \u201cSMES are the engines of growth in the Americas continent\u201d and affirmed that equipping SMES with the tools that they need to gain access to, and compete in the global market place \u201cis a priority throughout our region\u201d.<\/p>\n
In that sense, she added that \u201cthe US government supports enhancing the competitiveness of SMES through exchanging of experiences and best practices, cooperation and the adoption of initiatives geared toward public policies and human institutional capacity building that support productivity and sustainable economic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Escipion Oliveira, deputy director of Caribbean Export, one of the partner organizations for the project, recalled the importance of empowering women who work in the SME and highlighted that his program \u201cwill not only help economically but also socially in the countries of the Caribbean\u201d He further noted that the region has a long story of entrepreneurship, focused on traditional sectors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is now the time to diversify our economy and in believing in ourselves and developing the internal market of the Caribbean,\u201d he added and expressed his hope that the program will be extended to other countries of the region.<\/p>\n
In closing the launching event, the associate vice president at the University of Texas in San Antonio, Robert McKinley, underscored that the program \u201chas been successful in the United States for the past 35 years\u201d as a partnership between the government, the universities and the private sector that work on business development to provide services in business training, counseling, technology assistance and research.<\/p>\n
He further explained that the long term goal is to form an inter-American network of small business development programs with two strategic purposes: development and trade, with special emphasis in women entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Caribbean must not be left out, as the region can benefit greatly from this initiative\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The program that will be implemented by the OAS executive secretary of integral development aims to facilitate SME access to international markets in the Caribbean. Its operation is based on assisting institutions to support small and medium enterprises in the region in its ability to provide expert advice and training and mentoring programs to guide companies in their growth and competitiveness.<\/p>\n
The project is supported by the University of Texas at San Antonio and the Caribbean Export Development Agency, and funded by the United States Mission to the OAS. The program has already been implemented in Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama, and in the United States are currently 1,100 centers that help businesses to expand international trade opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Organization of American States (OAS) and the US government have launched a project to establish small business development centres in five member states of CARICOM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[100,118,135],"class_list":["post-18442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-caribbean-2","tag-development","tag-small-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}