• Home
• it.unipi.di.acube
• bat-framework
• 1.3
• source code
• yn_08Oct08_file_40

×

Project download

Many resources are needed to download a project. Please understand that we have to compensate our server costs. Thank you in advance.
Project price only 1 $

You can buy this project and download/modify it how often you want.

datasets.iitb.crawledDocs.yn_08Oct08_file_40 Maven / Gradle / Ivy

    Diversifying the economy Whether or not the $700 billion financial package recently approved by the United States Congress to stabilize that country's financial system will have the desired effect remains to be seen, but it is almost certain that The Bahamas' tourism sector will continue to be negatively impacted by the fallout from the global financial crisis precipitated by the economic problems in the United States for an undetermined period of time. Clearly, this should be a matter of grave concern for the government, given the fact that the vast majority of the tourists who come to this country are from America. In the past whenever tourism - the engine that drives The Bahamas' economy - begins to sputter, the debate over ways to diversify the economy is revived. Invariably the two most mentioned industries that Bahamians think the powers that be should seek to develop are farming and fishing. Just as surely, however, those who make these suggestions are quick to add that a major impediment to the success of farming and fishing as major money earners for The Bahamas is the high cost of labor. Surely, unless a way can be found to bring down labor costs, finding potential investors to take farming and fishing to a level whereby they would be the third and fourth pillars of The Bahamas economy - behind tourism and banking - will continue to be an exercise in futility. What's more, many Bahamians consider farming and fishing to be menial work and below their dignity; consequently, even if some economic genius can figure out a way to make them profitable - despite the high cost of labor - it would still be difficult to find sufficient Bahamians who are willing to do that kind of work. So what then is the answer? One theory that has been bandied about is the importation of cheaper labor, primarily from Haiti, under an arrangement similar to what existed between The Bahamas and farmers in the United States in the 1950s. Referred to locally as 'the contract', Bahamians were contracted for a specified period of time to plant and harvest produce on farms in Florida and other areas of America, and after their contract expired, they were shipped back home. Of course, there were many instances where some of them did what was referred to back then as 'jump the contract' and remained illegally in the United States. There is also the question as to whether the importation of Haitian labor would be widely accepted by Bahamians. There is a school of thought that any formal arrangement of this nature could exacerbate the very serious illegal Haitian immigration problem The Bahamas has been faced with for decades. Nonetheless, there is no disputing the fact that both fishing and farming could be profitable industries in The Bahamas if a solution can be found to the high-cost-of-labor problem. Some people tend to forget that the island of Eleuthera, for example, is capable of producing the best pineapples in the world. Indeed, it once did. It is not a fabled tale that the pineapple industry that is one of the main pillars of Hawaii's economy was developed from pineapples imported from The Bahamas. Eleuthera has also been known to produce excellent oranges. And, of course, the resourceful fishermen of Spanish Wells and the rest of North Eleuthera long ago proved that big bucks could be made from fishing. All that it now takes is for the government to make the commitment to find a way to make these industries viable. It may not be easy, but it can be done.