Caribbean Export OUTLOOK 2016 - 2017

Clearing the Hurdles

The Caribbean has a proud history as creators of music and art, with increasingly more artistes bursting on the scenes each year in the hopes of not only becoming household names in their home country and the wider Caribbean, but of also crossing over to the international market and becoming a global icon. The presence of a creative and cultural sector within an economy has been seen to significantly contribute towealth creation, employment generation, and poverty reduction in the region. Moreover, the creative industries are widely accepted to be a growth sector globally, following reports from organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which reported an annual average growth rate of 8.8% during the period of 2002-2011. The UK, for example, has seen its creative industry double in size over the last ten years, and is forecast to grow significantly within the next decade. In fact, governments internationally are recognising the promotion of creativity as a key method to promote economic growth. The creative industries have been outlined by the UNDP to be “the cycles of creation, production and distribution of goods and services that use creativity and intellectual capital as primary inputs. They comprise a set of knowledge-based activities that produce tangible goods and intangible intellectual or artistic services with creative content, economic value and market objectives” (UNCTAD/UNDP, 2008, p.4). At the 26th CARICOM Heads of Government Intercessional meeting held in the Bahamas in February 2015, the development of a Caribbean Creative Industries Management Unit (CCIMU) was prioritised as a priority item on the Community’s agenda. Former PrimeMinister of Jamaica, theMost Honourable P.J. Pattersonwas given the responsibility to Chair a working group to realise this goal, andCaribbean Export has been charged with the lead role in the development of the CCIMU that will focus initially on music, fashion, festivals and animation. Growth in developing country exports of creative goodswas reported to average some 12.1%between 2002-2011 byUNESCOand in 2010, the Bank of Jamaica reported that Jamaica earned US$23.8 million fromcultural services, which ismore than the earnings from services in finance, business, insurance and construction combined. The Bank also noted that reggae icons like Sean Paul and Shaggy earn more annually than Jamaica’s banana industry. UNESCO and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) indicated that inTrinidad andTobago,

the creative economy contributed approximately 4.8% of GDP in 2011 and approximately 3% towards employment. In Saint Lucia the contribution of the sector to GDP has risen to 7.8% of GDP in 2010 from3.2% of GDP in 2000. In spite of these impressive results, the Caribbean remains significantly challenged in increasing the sector’s contribution to sustainable development due to the lack of strategic and focusedmanagement, limited financial resources, insufficientmarket intelligence andbranding, poor linkages with the local tourism industry andweak data collection. As noted by ExecutiveDirector of Caribbean Export, Pamela Coke Hamilton “the biggest gap has been the absence of a structure that looks at the monetisation of the creative industries for the region.” It is hoped that the implementation of the right infrastructure and enabling environment to support the creative industries,throughtheestablishmentofaCCIMU, will realise the potential gains of the region’s creative sector. Currently, as pointed out byCoke- Hamilton “we have nothing in place that actually measures or gives tangible voice to what needs to be done, howor what data can be collected, how it can actually bemonetised, andhowwe can benefit from intellectual property value in the creative industries. Furthermore, we need to consider the means bywhichwe canhave a strategic engagement at the regional level to promote the Caribbean creatives, and how we can ensure investment and financing. In constructing the CCIMU we must address the issues of establishing and utilising a digital platform and creating an institutional framework that enables the creative industry to become a vibrant viable sector that has a coherent and cohesive framework for development.” The Caribbean does however have some national bodies and regional organisations such as the Copyright Society of Composers Authors and Publishers Inc. (COSCAP) which work with composers and artistes in an attempt to collect royalties, but the absence of a single body with a regional framework to manage the entire creative industries, pulling together all of the necessary elementsrequiredtoeffectivelyrepresenttheartistes’ interests and achieve the monetary possibilities, is absent. It is envisaged that the CCIMU would be responsible for the collection and increasing the availabilityofdataonthecreativeindustries,which is often needed to access finance for the creative sector, particularly for SMEs. Moreover the CCIMU would work to enhance trade and export development for the regional creative industries sectorbyfacilitatingtheregistrationandprotection of the IP of the Caribbean.

The creative economy is not only one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the world economy, but also a highly transformative one in terms of income generation, job creation and export earnings.

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