By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Society of Engineers (BSE) president yesterday urged his colleagues and other industries "to draw the red lines" on what should be liberalised under WTO.

Quentin Knowles told Tribune Business that all sectors of the Bahamian economy needed to determine what they can live with under the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) rules-based trading regime before "someone makes that decision for us".

The Government, in its continuing consultations with the private sector, wants to discover the "minimum acceptable" position for each industry to help craft The Bahamas' opening offer for full WTO membership - a process that it hopes to conclude by end-2019.

Mr Knowles said "ambivalence is the order of the day" among Bahamian engineers over the potential benefits and downside to joining the WTO, with some BSE members vehemently opposed on the basis that it will open up the sector and wider economy to foreign professionals and firms.

Suggesting that there were many "misunderstandings" and "false assumptions" surrounding the WTO accession and its likely impact, the BSE president said he was focusing on the potential benefits.

Mr Knowles explained that a WTO regime would "set the rules of the game" by which all must play, which could help Bahamian engineers and other professionals get "a fair shake" on work generated by foreign direct investment (FDI) projects.

Pointing out that the Bahamian engineering industry was already heavily exposed to foreign competition, he argued that WTO membership was unlikely to "make it worse than it is now" when it came to obtaining FDI-related work.

The BSE last week held a luncheon to discuss WTO's implications, and Mr Knowles said of the profession's position: "I think the best way to describe it is ambivalence. We're unsure what the impact will be.

"You don't want to allow your mind to.. make false assumptions. There were people inside that meeting that expressed extreme misapprehension about this. There's a lot of misunderstanding, assumptions being made. People are equating this with Immigration and jobs being taken away."

He added: "On the other hand, there's some of us who view it [WTO] as an opportunity. Myself, I view it with ambivalence. We have a lot of competition now; competition is not something we're not used to.

"A lot of competition is foreign. It [the sector] is open, but signing on to WTO will make that official. To speak as a group, ambivalence is the order of the day."

Brent Symonette, minister of financial services, trade and industry and Immigration, has already moved to reassure Bahamians that the WTO will not result in the free movement of labour, which was contemplated by other trade regimes such as the CARICOM Single Market & Economy (CSME).

The liberalised, rules-based trading regime overseen by the WTO is largely focused on the cross-border flow of commerce, meaning the movement of goods and services, together with the ability of foreign-owned companies to establish themselves in member states.

The industries that the Bahamas must liberalise, and to what extent, will depend heavily on the skills of the negotiating team who must determine this nation's WTO accession terms in talks with a 'Working Party'. This will feature countries interested in trading with the Bahamas, such as the US, Canada, European Union (EU), UK, China and other CARICOM states.

The Bahamas' will likely be able to negotiate 'carve outs' or exemptions for certain sectors, which reserve them for Bahamian ownership only, and do not require that they be opened to foreign competition.

Mr Knowles, though, warned that the Bahamas needed to be careful of "the law of unintended consequences" when negotiating its accession terms, meaning it must account for the concerns of all industries.

Having attended the WTO consultations held with both the engineers and contractors, the BSE president said the Government was seeking a "consolidated position with red lines" from each industry on what should not be liberalised in the negotiations.

"We've got to draw these red lines. We have to," Mr Knowles told Tribune Business. "I'm telling my group: 'If we don't, someone will make that decision for us, and I'd prefer to have an engineer make the decision for engineers.

"We don't know what's going to happen," he added. "We know there are players out there most definitely interested in our market. There are a lot of people doing work now in the Bahamas. Having a rules-based system in place, at least they and we will know what to expect."

The BSE president, saying he was taking a "positive" approach that focuses on WTO's potential benefits, said full membership could benefit Bahamian engineers when it came to obtaining work on FDI projects because it will set the terms upon which foreign competitors can access this market.

"Oddly enough, it may start to reverse the trend," he said. "The way I look at it, this [entrance of foreign rivals] happens all the time. And it's not like the local professionals have access to FDI projects.

"They come with the engineers, architects and even the contractors in tow, and we have to act as local representatives, getting permits from the Ministry of Works. If this thing [WTO] is formalised, we as a group can assert our rights. If we're going to be signing on to a rules-based trading regime, we should have a fairer shake at these projects.

"I'm hoping local professionals will have more access. I'm looking at WTO from a positive perspective. It's not going to make it worse than it is now. Right now, considering our access to these FDI projects, at least in the last several years, I don't think we'll be restricted more than we are now."

Mr Knowles said the involvement of Bahamian professionals, such as engineers and architects, would provide the local knowledge to help investors avoid "pitfalls". He recalled his involvement in the $409.5 million redevelopment of Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA), saying he and other Bahamians made "a tremendous contribution to that project".

"It will give us the rules by which we will operate," the BSE president added of the WTO. "Sometimes I believe anything goes out here, and if we have the rules set out on how we operate, we know what is allowed and not allowed, and if there are violations we can appeal to whoever we have to appeal to.

"I'm ambivalent. There's good and bad, so I look at it from both sides."