The Bahamas has been urged by the Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank (IDB) to take steps to quantify the scope and contribution of its creative industries to the overall economy as a first step to realizing its true potential to impact gross domestic product. Felipe Buitrago Restrepo, co-author of a new report by the IDB, “The Orange Economy: An Infinite Opportunity”, said that United Nations trade data suggests that The Bahamas suffers from a massive deficit in the area of creative goods, having imported some $123 million worth of these goods in 2010, while exporting just over $1.64 million. While this is partly due to the small size of the Bahamian economy and society, the Colombian economist said that there is much more that can be done to make sure that this country benefits from the talents of its most creative minds, including enforcing copyright protection and intellectual property rights, but starting first with information gathering. Buitrago Restrepo spoke to Guardian Business ahead of a visit to The Bahamas to present the results of the report and engage in a discussion on it. That event will take place at The CentralBank of The Bahamas tonight, and the Colombian economist will speak alongside Bahamian and owner of Doongalik Studios Art Gallery Pam Burnside. Burnside recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to present her own paper, titled “Fostering Economic and Commercial Viability of the Caribbean Creative Economy” at an IDBco-sponsored Creatives of the Caribbean Arts event. In “The Orange Economy” the IDB seeks to highlight the growing economic relevance of the creative and cultural sector in the region’s economies, in terms of productivity and employment and, in particular, its potential to remain a stable form of income even during economic downturns such as the one TheBahamas and the region as a whole is beginning to emerge from. However, given that the bank was unable to find any reports on creative industries in The Bahamas from which to draw data for research, Buitrago Restrepo said that this suggests it is even more important for this country, over some of its regional peers, to begin to take steps to quantify and measure in a systematic way the industry’s contribution to the economy. Buitrago Restrepo noted that research undertaken in order to compile the report revealed that data on The Bahamas’ creative economy is “very decentralized and scattered”. “There are no reports per se that we could find about The Bahamas,”he added. With respect to the low level of creative exports from this country, Buitrago Restrepo said:“Clearly The Bahamas is either not reporting its cultural exports in the brackets that make them be counted as cultural by UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), or if it is not exporting them, then my hypothesis is that the main creatives are living in the U.S.and generating value in the U.S.” Among the “creative goods” highlighted in the report are audiovisual goods, crafts, designs, new media and visual and performing arts. Creative services include advertising, architecture, culture and leisure and research and development. Buitrago Restrepo said that it is because the creative industry is not well-documented in terms of its contribution to GDP, it is often overlooked by policymakers, a common complaint of local artists and cultural contributors. Despite this, it is a multibillion-dollar contributor to the economies of many countries in the region and with more support could do even more, the report suggests. “The Orange Economy” identifies seven key areas that must be addressed in order to better meet the needs of the sector: information, institutions, infrastructure, integration, inclusion and inspiration. With respect to the role of information, he added:“In principle it’s very difficult to find anyone who disagrees that culture is important. With 100,000, maybe 5,000 will tell you they don’t think culture is important at all. The rest just don’t know how important it is and how it relates to economy. “That happens to politicians. When they have to make hard choices and they choose between sectors with a lot of information and certainty and compare that with a sector that you believe is important, but you don’t have evidence or numbers that supports your decision, it’s very difficult. So politically it’s very difficult to take a chance with this sector. That’s why we did this report to make the case of the big numbers involved so people realize the magnitude,” said the economist. Turning to The Bahamas, he added:“Even if you don’t want to make it central to development, it’s a sector that has an important impact, and you need to account for it. You can’t make decisions with half of your economy being accounted for. Making decisions without that information is going to be increasingly erratic and misleading. It’s better if you can integrate it into your strategic planning and harness the potential of the talented people or the country to deliver a better quality of life.” The bank first began work on identifying the role of the creative economy in the region and its potential in 2007, but this fell by the wayside following the financial crisis of 2008. “The mission was to try to return to build up awareness about the importance of the creative economy and the importance to Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Buitrago Restrepo. “There’s a very negative balance of payments on intellectual property. The region is holding back its potential by not engaging in a strategic way on these intangibles and it’s not that we don’t have people with ideas and talent; it’s because we’re not engaging these people in a proper way to protect their talents. A lot is paid outwards; the royalties of artists from the region who are signed in Miami, Los Angeles or Spain. We need to create the right conditions for royalties to come to us, to generate more business in our region because we have the talent, but we are not harnessing the potential of the talent.” “Think of Rihanna; her sales worldwide match in revenue the exports of the whole country. But none of those sales are reported as exports from Barbados.” The report highlights the fact that while it “doesn’t register on the radar of most economists”, the orange economy would have reached $4.3 trillion in 2011. According to UNCTAD, creative goods and services exports grew 134 percent between 2002 and 2011, almost double the rate shown by all military transfers. Overall, such exports reached $646 billion in 2011.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 15:37:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015