Business View Caribbean | October 2019

67 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN OCTOBER 2019 (MSME) as a vibrant contributor to the economic and social transformation of Dominica. The sector provides meaningful employment, skills transfer, wealth creation, higher productivity, foreign exchange, and diverse opportunities for the country’s citizens to participate in national development. With its mission to create an enabling environment that supports, strengthens, and promotes business development activities, and a vision to be the key driver fuelling business and economic transformation, the Ministry and its Honorable Minister Roselyn Paul are exactly what Dominica needs for a bright future and sustainable growth. Business View Caribbean recently spoke with Minister Paul about the Ministry’s initiatives and positive outlook going forward. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation. BVC: Can you provide some perspective on Dominica’s economic picture, today? Minister Paul: “When Hurricane Maria struck, our pictured Honorable Minister, Roselyn Paul MINI STRY OF COMMERCE , ENTERPR I SE AND SMALL BUS INESS DEVELOPMENT - DOMINI CA economy was devastated. We lost over 200 percent of our GDP, but it’s projected for this upcoming year that our GDP is expected to be 9.5 – so we’ve made a great recovery. After the hurricane, and even today as we seek to recover, there has been improved economic activity in construction. And in my Ministry, we’ve seen increased activity and new businesses that have emerged within the last two years. That has boosted the construction industry, manufacturing and others, especially services.. “So, in celebrating our resilience, it’s a way of giving thanks to God and remembering what we went through, our many losses, and where we are now with significant growth. And it gives a sense of hope. In terms of agriculture, people never went hungry following the hurricane. Even by December, we had a lot of fresh foods in our local market. And right now, we’ve reached the stage where we no longer have to import eggs. We have eggs in abundance, and agriculture production is back on track. Our export of more diversified products are symptoms of the health of industries that are the pictured Hon. Minister Paul meeting with some enterprising young men embarking upon the small business start up of honey production in the South East of the island.