KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY DR. LEONEL FERNÁNDEZ, EXPRESIDENT OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, CO-CHAIRMAN OF THE UNITED STATES-CARIBBEAN EXECUTIVES´ CLUB. WASHINGTON, D.C., NOVEMBER 6TH., 2001.

Mr. Eric Peterson, 
Senior Vice president and director of studies, CSIS;

Mrs. Amy Coughenour Bethencourt, Deputy director Americas Program and US-Caribbean Executive Club’s Coordinator;

Honorable diplomatic representatives,

Distinguished members of the Club;

Special guests and friends:

It is a great honor and pleasure for me to address you tonight. It is the second time that we meet and I am happy to see that we are stronger each time.

First of all I would like to thank our friends at the Center for Strategic and International Studies for working so hard and with such a great success to bring together forward-thinking and future oriented U.S. and Caribbean business leaders deeply committed to strengthening commercial and cooperation ties between the two neighbors, as well as promoting the understanding and the exchange of experiences on both sides. My congratulations to the whole team, and special thanks to Mrs. Amy Coughenour who has dedicated so much of herself to make it all happen.

It saddens us all, though, that Mr. Georges Fauriol, former Director of the Americas Program, will not be part of this initiative any more, as he has recently been appointed Vice President of Strategic Planning at the International Republican Institute. It is such a loss not to have him with us any more. Still, we believe he will not forget us completely and let’s hope that our paths will cross. We wish him a lot of success in his new position and we’ll closely follow his future achievements.

I would like to welcome all the new members. Thank you all so much for joining us and for supporting this valuable program. We’ll be looking forward to your suggestions, ideas and concerns as we work towards a really productive and creative alliance that will abound in benefits for our countries.

And before I address the subject of our second annual meeting, permit me, in the name of all the representatives of the Caribbean community, to express our deepest condolences to our friends and all the people of the United States for the losses they suffered due to the recent horrendous terrorist attacks. Your anguish and sorrow are ours as well. Your repudiation of violence and determination to fight against evil is deeply embedded in our hearts and minds. With open hands and our modest resources we offer you our solidarity and support.

The events of September 11 have changed our lives. They have affected our present and transformed the way we think about our future. Many of our old concerns have gained another shape and new topics have arisen on the horizon.

How have they affected the fates of our countries and the United States - Caribbean relationship?

Let us remember that with president Bush’s first travel abroad that took place in Mexico and his vigorous stand in favor of free trade agreement for the hemisphere at the Quebec Summit, our hopes and expectations that his administration will place a special stress on Latin America and the Caribbean were high. General Collin Powell’s Jamaican origin and his strong interest in the Caribbean, as well as President Bush’s ties with Mexico, contributed to our quite optimistic vision.

The September 11 events place us in a different perspective. The construction of an international counterterrorism coalition, the issue of domestic security, as well as current military interventions, demand strongly for a restructuring and relocation of the United States diplomatic efforts, international strategies and public funds. The interest has abruptly shifted towards safeguarding national security, peace and confidence; orchestrating an aggressive military campaign against terrorism perpetrators and their protectors, and bailing out heavily struck economic sectors.

In a short term, this leaves Latin America and the Caribbean out of the United States priority agenda. But not thoroughly so, and not for a long time.

With the September 11 events, our destinies are tied so much more together. Our old hemispheric agenda gains new vitality. Only countries with steady economies, strong democratic institutions and consolidated rule of law can effectively develop defense strategies and sustain counterterrorism programs. Our former concerns come to be more pressing: information technology tools in hands of educated labor force are a critical prerequisite for the construction of networks.

Our immigration and intelligence services must share information. Our countries have to cooperate in law enforcement and financial investigation efforts. We have to monitor and suppress money laundering and alien smuggling.

The way to achieve this is to build stronger, more efficient, better protected networks. This is the moment for all of us to invest our efforts in the improvement of networks, to create a structural change, to produce a historic leap. Otherwise, new measures might work towards the detriment of our economic exchange and therefore against our people’s prosperity. 

Our challenge is to jointly design and operate a system that facilitates commerce and provides security.
Before the terrorist attacks, the US economy was already experiencing a major cyclical slowdown. The decrease in economic growth was significantly affecting export-oriented economies that depend on US markets, including highly sophisticated economies such as Singapore and Taiwan, not to mention Latin America and the Caribbean. The terrorist attacks have hurried and increased the size of the slowdown, although it is still impossible to predict how the economic situation will evolve in the next year or two. 

If we are to follow the cyclical logic, there should be an upswing in near future. If we consider a possibility of a prolonged military conflict, the consequences will be predominantly negative, with few positive exceptions and unforeseen surprises. If we are thinking in structural terms, the economies that have been improving their competitiveness and strengthening their integration in global networks, should be able to successfully face the challenges of these difficult times. And those that suffer from big structural deficiencies, in order to survive in the new scenario, will have to work towards better competitiveness and fuller global integration.

Up till now, though, it has been made clear that exactly the developing economies with the strongest ties to global markets have been the most affected and will remain the most vulnerable in the new international context.

Most Latin American and Caribbean countries are closely linked to US business cycle, continue to be commodity exporters and strongly rely on tourism. All that makes them extremely vulnerable in the present economic setup where there are clear signs of US economic slowdown, where commodity prices have been decreasing for years, and where there is a large drop in the number of tourists and tourism revenues on a global scale.

Still, now, more than ever, while we are navigating across a rough and uncertain international scenario, it is important to pursue sound competitiveness-oriented policies and to strengthen global economic networks. 

Globalization is a fact – it is our present, it is our future. There is no way back. We have to keep working with it, facing all of its advantages and opportunities, and equally its numerous menaces and concerns. 

Now, more than ever, we must work towards safer and more efficient networks. We must accelerate the opening of the markets and the exchange of information. And we have to make sure that it is all happening in a mutually beneficial manner.

Now, more than ever, all economies must work to strengthen global economic networks: transportation, communication, finances and trade. This is the United States agenda, this is Caribbean agenda, this is our common agenda. The one we should promote, reinforce and develop taking carefully into consideration concerns and benefits of both sides.

In that context, more than ever, our business leaders should get acquainted with the cutting edge tools and strategies in order to gain new insights and create innovative and competitive approaches to regional and global integration processes, as well as to recently created market uncertainties. By means of updating and deepening their managerial knowledge and by strengthening their corporate response capacities they will play the critical role in assuring the progress and prosperity of their countries.

We are all impatiently looking forward to tomorrow’s working sessions that will instruct us on strategies for a successful regional and global integration. I would like to thank our friends from the CSIS for providing us with such knowledgeable experts as Dr. Jonathan Doh and Dr. Hildy Teegen and let me thank you all for joining us tonight.

Washington, D.C. Nov. 6th., 2001.