The comments were made in Kingstown at a forum for private and public sector leaders to examine and arrive at practical solutions to issues relating to wages, employment, prices and productivity.

Venner said sugar and bananas, the major agricultural export commodities in the eight-member sub-regional grouping “are under immense pressure as the preferential arrangements are being inexorably eroded.”

He also noted that the level of competition, which characterises the major foreign exchange earner tourism, signals that no privileges will be extended to the by the international economy simply because the OECS are extremely small countries.

“In fact our rankings in the Human Development Indices of the United Nations places us in the middle-income country range. We do not rank with the countries of Sub Saharan Africa and Bangladesh in terms of basic needs and necessities,” Venner explained.

He added that his places greater pressure on the region because of its geographical position, in the western hemisphere between North and South America.

“This means that the standard of living we aspire to is that of our neighbours to the north,” he said.

Venner also noted that he the “the very vibrant liberal democratic systems with competitive multiparty politics and a free press … places great pressure on elected governments to deliver first world services and standards of living from a very limited resource base.”

The ECCB chief said the response to these circumstances and the strategies for successfully getting through this transformative stage will depend on the collective vision as well as the political and technical capacity for implementing these strategies.

He said the OECS can identify four levels at which we can analyse the circumstances in which we exist: international, regional, OECS and national.

Venner said that at the international level the issues that are of critical importance include the changing trade regimes which, while emphasizing the liberalization and removal of trade barriers, are undermined by the unequal negotiating power and capacity between nation states.

He also mentioned the increasing volatility and distributional impact of the international financial system. There is a tendency for crises to erupt with great intensity as was the case in the Asian crisis.

Additionally, Venner spoke of the rise of interest rates, the prices of commodities such as oil and building materials; the performance of the world economy particularly the new triad the United States, China and India.