President Barack Obama's visit to JAMAICA is a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity — Service sector is the way forward & President Obama doing the BOINK Reggae dance in preparation for his Trip to Jamaica in April

AS excitement builds about the impending brief visit of US President Barack Obama, the American Chamber of Commerse thinks that it represents a once in a lifetime opportunity to expand trade via the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI).

Pres. Barack Obama

The American Chambers of Commerce Jamaica (AMCHAM) and Trinidad and Tobago are currently piloting an initiative aimed at expanding trade and investment in services between Caricom and the United States.

The group hopes to establish a new regime dubbed Services to the Caribbean (SOCA), to advance executive, legislative, and business-to-business (B2B) initiatives between Caricom businesses and the US. Ultimately, AMCHAM believes that the services sector is the way to expand economic growth and jobs for Jamaica and its Caricom neighbours.

"CBI expires in 2020 and we have no doubt that it will be renewed, but the problem persists with how relevant it is when it was launched in 1983 and was focused on goods, free trade zones and manufacturing for exports", vice-president of Manchester Trade and advisor to SOCA, David Lewis, stated via Skype at the AMCHAM public forum on SOCA initiative on Wednesday.

Manchester Trade, based in Washington DC, has been in business for two decades providing strategic trade and business advisory services to American and international clients in areas such as trade negotiations, export development, investment promotion, and legislative advocacy. It works with its clients to advance domestic and global business and policy interests in the US market and abroad.

"The US president is coming to Jamaica to meet with the prime minister on April 9 and there is a wonderful opportunity to bring the issue up, and it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. I think if we then patch that in with the business initiative we are working on, you end up having a good coalition effort," Lewis said.

"We need to do it this year, because when we get to fall at the end of the year we begin the season of pre-election, and by then it's going to be very difficult to get their attention on an issue which is foreign and not critical to them," he added.

The AMCHAM initiative, which was launched in Washington DC two years ago, seeks to refocus the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), under which Caribbean countries and Central America receive several tariff and trade benefits to the US, to include services as the dominant sector of Caricom economies and of US-Caricom trade and investment. more