By Tony Best From New York Carib News

Creative industries across the Caribbean blended into an international showcase of music, dance, sports, animation and festivals with their own calendar of events, an economic lifeline that can help spur growth.

An examination of the roles of women of power and influence; a linking of arms of corporate executives and entrepreneurs stretching from the U.S. and the Caribbean to the African continent; a forum for the social media generation, tomorrow’ emerging leaders; and a session on doing business in the U.S. and another on the profitable ways of owning and managing enterprises in the Bahamas while exploring the pathways to investment in the Caribbean.

Those were some of the issues, challenges and opportunities on the agenda of the 19th annual Caribbean International Business Conference held in November 6-9 at Sandals Resort in Nassau. With “The Caribbean Waves of Opportunity, Oceans of Success” as its theme, the conference attended by more 110 senior executives, Bahamian cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister of the host country, Perry Christie; P.J Patterson, the man who led Jamaica longer than anyone else in the 52 years of independence; faith leaders and entrepreneurs from the U.S. along with New York State and City elected representatives was a platform that brought a diversified group of American and Caribbean under a single exciting umbrella.

“We feel a sense of optimism” in the Bahamas and the Carib News conference was playing its part, said Mr. Christie at the closing dinner when in an unscripted and eloquent address described Mr. Patterson as an “icon on the right side of history.”

The sessions and the missions of the conference, he added, were helping to bring peoples of color into partnerships that narrowed the gaps between them.

“The relationship between people of color in the Caribbean and the United States has been insufficiently taken advantage of,” was the way Christie put. “We have to do more to understand (and promote) the relationship which ought to exist and fight for what we are entitled to.”

And an effective pathway to achieve that goal can be the boosting of the creative industries, a niche in the Caribbean marketplace, he added.

In a speech at the first business session, which set the tone for Mr. Christie’s address, Patterson cited UNESCO and UNCTAD figures that suggested a global “current value of the creative economy” at $1.6 trillion with the sports component “growing faster than” the gross domestic product in booming economies” such as Brazil, South Africa and other BRIC nations as well as the “more mature markets” of North America and Europe.

“For Caribbean people, sports are a treasure trove from which we can receive incalculable benefits,” asserted for the former Prime Minister. “Now that we have identified a catalytic role of the creative economy, we (in the Caribbean) must proceed with urgency to decide on our priorities and develop a model across the Caribbean in keeping with international trends. This will stimulate employment, develop value through new intellectual property and advance our perspectives and knowledge simultaneously.”

A major step forward would be the creation of a calendar of festivals that would link tourism in the Caribbean, attract more visitors, boost revenues for both the private and public sectors, put the creativity and energy of young people to highly productive, profitable and exciting use, whether in music, animation, film production, music or for the social media.

“We now need to intensify long-standing efforts to market and diversify specific elements of our creative economy to support our tourism efforts,” Patterson said. “It cannot be too hard to present carnival, Junkanoo, Crop-Over and all the respective festivals as part of a year round cultural itinerary or schedule.”

Ed Goldberg, senior executive vice president of government and consumer affairs for Macy’s, the world famous network of department stores, one of which is in Puerto Rico, agreed.

“We support the conference because it’s an excellent forum for us to address business and social issues that affect us in the United States and the Caribbean,” Goldberg explained. “We already have a store in the Caribbean and are planning another in Puerto Rico but the conference allows us to meet potential suppliers of goods and services for our stories and to explore training opportunities for some of the region’s young people.”

Claudio Hidalgo, chief operating officer of Digicel, the large Caribbean and Central American communications company, said that the conference in the Bahamas, a place where his firm operates described the Caribbean as a vibrant telecommunications market and the conference an excellent vehicle to explore business opportunities.

“We are very glad that we were in the Bahamas for it,” he said. “Access to telecommunications is a human right and it is vital we recognize that fact.”

During the various sessions that zeroed in on investment and doing business, young executives took to the stage to talk about prospects for the future and what they bring to the board room and the entrepreneurial table, Sabrina Hosang Jordan, chief operating officer, Caribbean Food Delights, an affiliate of Royal Caribbean Bakery, whose products are sold nationwide throughout the United States and in several Caribbean countries told an audience that succession planning was critical to the future of family owned businesses so that an atmosphere of mutual respect between the mature corporate leaders and the younger generation can foster growth.

“In its important that both the old and the new generation to respect each and be open to each other,” she said.

Her father, Dr. Vincent Hosang, CEO of Royal Caribbean Bakery, who attended several of the annual meetings during the past decade said that the deliberations, ideas and atmosphere were good for business.

Ambassador Andy Young, a former U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations who later became Mayor of Atlanta and was a co-convener of the Nassau meeting along with Mr. Patterson and Ambassador Carlton Masters and Michael V. Robert said that when “we don’t get together we miss quite a lot” and as a result the gains which would have been recorded are missed.

Interestingly, with the Bahamas planning a Junkanoo carnival in May next year as a major event on its cultural calendar, spurred on by the Prime Minister those attending conference were given a taste of that festival when a costume bad played for and danced with many of the visitors.

“It was thoroughly exciting” said Ambassador Suzan Johnson Cook who was the Obama Administration’s Ambassador for global religious freedom. She served in the U.S. State Department.

Karl Rodney, Carib News publisher and a driving force behind the conference said the enthusiasm and assistance of the government of the Bahamas led by the Prime Minister “contributed significant to the successful outcome.”

For more on this story go to: http://www.nycaribnews.com/news.php?viewStory=4831

IMAGE: Perry Christie