Smith to meet with Trade Department executives
Junior Minister for Financial Services and Economic Development, Lorna Smith, has announced plans to meet with senior executives in the Trade Department to move forward with key reforms related to the stalled Trade Commission and Investment Act.
Smith confirmed the meeting is set to take place today, Tuesday, April 15 and is aimed at reactivating progress on the Trade Commission, which had been suspended.
“We will be looking very shortly at getting… the Investment Act going, and there has to be some changes made to that Investment Act,” Smith said during an appearance on the Talking Points show.
The Junior Minister said the work would include important components like consumer protection and investment incentives for both BVI residents and foreign investors.
Smith stressed that changes will not be further delayed despite previous inaction. “Let me assure you that we will be moving ahead very quickly with the trade, the changes to the trade, well, not the commission, but certainly the Trade Act,” she said. “It should not and will not take several months. I give you my word,” she asserted.
She also highlighted the urgent need for consumer protection. “We certainly need to get our consumer protection up and going, so that people have a place to come to for recourse,” Smith explained. She added that the budget already provides for hiring staff to begin that work, even without a fully established Trade Commission.
Smith’s comments follow previous reports that the legal suspension of the Trade Commission had expired with no movement toward implementation. The Trade Commission Act passed in 2020 was meant to modernise trade licensing and consumer rights, but its activation has been repeatedly delayed.
Smith said the government has “a whole suite” of legislation in place, and only minor changes are needed to move forward.
She also emphasised the importance of trade development in the current economic climate, especially in light of rising costs due to external tariffs.
“Trade is a very important area. It needs to be revitalised. Times have changed so much… we cannot expect that we’re going to have the same old stores and shops and shopfronts that we used to have,” she said.
Smith confirmed that investment residency would also form part of the upcoming discussions, noting, “If we can offer opportunities such as residence by investment, that is one of the areas.”
She said the government is moving “full steam ahead” on trade, investment, and consumer protection reforms.
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The only things moving in those offices are bowels. More f**king hot air for those who are gullible enough to believe this bulls**t.
Agreed! Corna Lady is old an elitist and a waste of time. You would have a more effective time watching paint dry that waiting for her to do anything worthwhile
Again?
We need to look at diversifying the BVI economy, but the territory remains firmly entrenched in the same protectionist nonsense that Trump is trying to re-engineer and sell to the US.
It’s high time the territory removed the speedbumps that we have erected to economic diversification and development.
There are three of them:
Restrictive and protectionist trade licensing process.
Artificially protracted work-permitting and immigration procedure.
Confining and repressive Customs duty scheme.
Admittedly our place in the world economy will never be as an industrial powerhouse, but we could at least start looking at doing something in terms of trade between the BVI and our neighbours. On local radio (92.3 FM) I hear ads from ECMIL, a steel fabrication enterprise on St. Vincent, exporting throughout the Caribbean. Most certainly neither Vincentians nor any other resident of the other Caribbean islands are hearing ads for products fabricated or manufactured in the BVI. If you wonder, “Why?”, the answer lies in the three roadblocks cited above.
Planning – this has never been a strong point for Caribbean governments. Most of what goes on in the halls of the various Caribbean bureaucracies is reacting to whatever the problem of the week may be. That means a solution like perhaps creating a Trade & Development Czar will never work. That would require planning, and likewise it would undoubtedly mean various departments and statutory bodies would have to surrender some of their prerogatives and powers… Never going to happen.
Given how topical tariffs are right now, maybe it’s time for the BVI to walk away from its restrictive and unfair Customs duty scheme and go duty-free! Try and make us competitive with our nearest neighbours, Sint Maarten and the USVI. The entire programme of duty in the BVI is nothing but a regressive and hidden tax on our population. Basically it creates a secret slush fund that is funnelled into the voracious maw of the treasury with the rate-payers having not one idea how much they are paying. (Oops! That might mean having to live within the government’s means.)
We dont need any more government interference in commerce. No successful economies have bureaucratic trade commissions and the like. They inhibit trade, they dont help it.
While you moving full speed ahead,start keeping townhall meetings or one on one with business owner, or open door policy for people to talk with you on subject areas of experience in the work place. Right now, many countries are pirating the labour force while the government is sleeping.
Foreign policy, ILO and Labour Department need to have ideas to stop the pirating.
As people can be in their country, while working within the BVI borders without a permit. I believe its time visionary leaders take a stand with technology blocking all foreign calls that invade the labour force, or use other methodology. There are people here who can do the same work, and if it goes on many people jobs will be extinct, while some foreign country eating you bread.