Carol J. Williams, Contributor
Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno (left) smiles with Haiti's President Rene Preval after a news conference at Preval's house in Port-au-Prince on June 5. Haiti's overall economic situation has now been described as 'broadly stable'. - REUTERS
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Los Angeles Times):
JOBS IN the garment industry, once Haiti's most vital sector, have dropped from 100,000 in the late 1980s to less than 20,000 today. In a country long plagued by chronic unemployment of 50 per cent to 70 per cent, the apparel assembly sector remains the nation's most important.
But manufacturers that have managed to survive, albeit by borrowing or scaling back production, believe that recovery could be on the horizon. A bill pending in the U.S. Congress would grant Haitian garment makers duty-free entry to the U.S. market for apparel crafted from fabric made in the U.S.
JOB CREATION
The bill, known as the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Through Partnership Encouragement, or HOPE, Act, could create as many as 20,000 jobs within four months of its passage, industry leaders say.
The HOPE Act is a watered-down version of a humanitarian gesture drafted in 2004. That bill, which was known as the Haiti Economic Recovery Opportunity, or HERO Act, would have allowed all Haitian-made apparel duty-free entrance to the U.S. market, whatever the origin of the cloth. HERO was passed by the Senate but bogged down in the House, prompting supporters of tariff relief for Haiti to bow to pressure from the U.S. textile lobby and scale back their ambitions.
Haitian garment makers have been led to believe that action on the bill was imminent, but unrelated Middle East trade issues have upended legislative scheduling, said a congressional source who did not want to be identified because negotiations on the matter are confidential.
A spokeswoman for the House Ways and Means Committee, Ianthe Jackson, said the timing of any debate on HOPE was unclear.
PREFERENTIAL TRADE TERMS
Richard Coles, whose family owns the Multitex factory that produces 150,000 dozen T-shirts a week for customers such as Hanes, J.C. Penney Co., Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., says the preferential trade terms accorded by the HOPE Act would be a far more effective way for the U.S. government to help the Haitian economy than foreign aid.
To sew a dozen T-shirts from knitted fabric, U.S. and Canadian apparel companies pay Haitian factories US$1.60 to US$1.80 for the labour. To sew jeans or trousers from woven cloth, manufacturers get US$20 to US$35 per dozen.
Coles said he trusted newly-elected President Rene Preval's commitment to help revive the garment industry, breaking with other business leaders who have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward the new government.
But even some business leaders who opposed Preval have become bullish on the garment industry's outlook. Minimum wage in Haiti is less than US$2 a day, compared with more than US$5 in the neighbouring Dominican Republic and most of Central America.
Jean-Edouard Baker, the older brother of an unsuccessful challenger to Preval and a fellow garment maker until Aristide's loyalists burned down his factories in February 2004, has drawn up plans for a free-trade zone in the town of Croix-des-Bouquets, just east of the capital airport. The current president of the Haitian Industrialists Association, Baker accompanied Preval on a March visit to Washington, where they lobbied congressional leaders to pass the HOPE Act "to send a clear signal that Haiti is back open for business."
Newly appointed Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis has promised to streamline business-licensing procedures to make Haiti an attractive venue for foreign manufacturers, Baker said. The new government is also working to ensure a reliable supply of electricity and water to the existing industrial park and to the site of the proposed free zone, he added.
