SELA creates programme for SMEs in Latin America and the Caribbean
26 de octubre de 2012

SMEs have been considered the major engine behind the economic and social development due to their potential to create and enhance job opportunities and contribute greatly to the Caribbean labour market

Caracas, 26 October 2012.- On 29 October, Montego Bay will host the "Second Regional Seminar on Tourism: The Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Tourism Development in the Caribbean Region"," a two-day event that is aimed at identifying and assessing best practices on the basis of cooperation experiences among public and private agencies, networks of enterprises and entrepreneurs in areas related to the tourism development of the Caribbean region. This Seminar, organized by the Permanent Secretariat of SELA, in conjunction with the Ministry of Tourism of Jamaica, the Caribbean Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (CASME) and the Small Business Association of Jamaica (SBAJ), will address the theme of productive coordination among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as a mechanism of collaboration to increase not only the tourist offer, but also the competitiveness in the sector. During the Seminar, participants are expected to specify actions and potential projects requiring technical assistance for strengthening the productive coordination and consortiums of SMEs in the tourism sector, as well as other areas of interest at the local, national and regional levels to promote the competitiveness of the tourism sector in the region. The promotion of the local, sectoral and national competitiveness requires, in addition to incentives and traditional practices, the adoption of new instruments for the capitalization and development of larger businesses and the implementation of partnership in its multiple expressions: Consortiums, coordination of networks of producers and service providers, being many of them complementary, or the formation of productive chains as a way of adding value and developing competitiveness strategies to attract new and diverse consumers of tourist attractions. During this regional event, other Caribbean experiences will be presented, in particular those from the Small Business Association of Barbados (SBA); the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation; the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS); the Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Youth Entrepreneurship and others from Belize and Montserrat. This seminar is part of the efforts made by SELA to integrate the Caribbean into its activities on SMEs, relying for this purpose on its SELA-SMEs Programme, created recently within the framework of the XXXVIII Regular Meeting of the Latin American Council. Among the objectives of this programme is the development of the public and private business structure of the 28 Member States of SELA by strengthening the institutional capacities of Government and businesses, as well as other bodies concerned with promoting and implementing programmes to support small and medium-sized enterprises. SMEs have been considered the major engine behind the economic and social development due to their potential to create and enhance job opportunities and contribute greatly to the Caribbean labour market. Despite the composition of SMEs in the Caribbean region is unknown and no accurate information is available on how many of them carry out business activities, it is estimated that 95 percent of manufacturing, trade and services enterprises in the Caribbean region are SMEs, which account for 45 percent of jobs created, and tourism is the major activity in this region.