Among the raft of legislation passed in the House of Assembly last night was a resolution authorizing the government to borrow US$16.5 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for what the Christie Administration is calling a Trade Sector Policy-Based Loan.

Minister of Financial Services Ryan Pinder, speaking in support of the loan, talked about the need for economic policy in The Bahamas to grow and evolve as the society does. Pinder spent much of his focus on the concept of market access.

He pointed out that The Bahamas is the only country in the Western Hemisphere that is not a part of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and that an immediate benefit of accession to the WTO would be the legal guarantee of market access to huge markets such as the United States and both South and Central American markets.

At present, he noted, The Bahamas enjoys no guarantees of market access except to the markets covered by the Economic Partnership Agreements covering areas of Europe and the CARIFORUM countries.

As an example, he noted how this might affect the $70 million crawfish export industry in The Bahamas, which is larger than the crawfish exports of all the other countries in the region combined. He suggested that crawfish exporters would benefit tremendously from WTO accession.

Pinder also said the loan would facilitate customs reform, including training for customs officers in order to strengthen institutional capacity, clarification of conditions for investment in The Bahamas and the establishment of a Bureau of Standards through which the government would issue regulations to ensure the health and safety of products produced and consumed in The Bahamas.

Included in the borrowings from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved on Wednesday was $7.5 million for the Christie Administration’s Social Safety Net Project (see Journal story on Page 3) and the much discussed $77 million in supplementary funding for the New Providence roadworks.