“The entire structure of our economy is changing and, I think, we can see that in no other place than in agriculture, particularly bananas. In 1990, agriculture contributed 13.9% to GDP. That means that of all the goods and services we produced in this country, agriculture was responsible for 13.9%. More than one-tenth of the goods and services we were producing in this country came from the agricultural sector, the banana sector. “Right now, that figure is 2.75%, gone down from 13.9% to 2.75%. But there’s an interesting story here… During his first term in office as prime minister, Dr. Kenny Anthony and the Labour government took the bold step to privatize the banana industry. This was done because we wanted to introduce greater commercial discipline and competition in the production of bananas. The opposition party criticized the government non-stop for that position despite the fact that the European Union – the ones who gave us all of the money to develop our banana sector – constantly praised the government of Saint Lucia for taking the decision to privatize the banana industry.” --- Dr. James Fletcher, Minister for Public Services, Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology
Posted on: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 19:43:16 +0000
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