Grantley Stephenson, president of the Caribbean Shipping Association (CSA), warned that corruption in international trade is hampering development and efficiency in the Caribbean region.

The CSA, he said, cannot be unmindful of the reality of corruption as it seeks to promote development. Stephenson was speaking at the opening of the 12th Caribbean Shipping Executives Conference (CSEC) held at the Grand Lucayan hotel in Freeport, The Bahamas, last week.

"The CSA cannot be unmindful of anything that retards development and which places heavier burdens on the shoulders of the people of this region," Stephenson said.

The 12th annual CSEC marked the first time that CSA addressed the effects of corruption on international trade. The conference previously addressed issues related to smuggling of narcotics and piracy. The issue of corruption was addressed at the conference by Professor Trevor Munroe.

Dr Munroe, in his presentation, brought hard evidence to show that corruption was having a very serious negative effect on growth and development in the region.

He noted that, compared to other regions elsewhere in the world, the Caribbean had a relatively high level of bribery with as much as a trillion dollars flowing from the private sector to the public sector. He observed that in a situation in which international trade was burdened or hampered by bureaucracy and high costs related to trading across borders, corruption was more prevalent.

In this regard, he compared the Caribbean to Singapore, which has a relatively low level of corruption. He contrasted the relatively short time (four to five days) it took to process documentation for import and export in Singapore and the relatively low costs for container handling with the Caribbean, where document processing took up to 20 days in some territories and the cost of moving containers was as much as three times higher than in Singapore.

The Caribbean area leads the rest of the world with a number of positive indicators. Quite apart from sports and culture, the Caribbean region was a leader in good governance and was ahead of far more economically advanced countries in press freedom and peaceful change of government. He, therefore, felt that corruption in international trade could be effectively dealt with in the region.

More than 150 shipping executives from across the Caribbean and Latin America attended the three-day conference.