$US 1 Million Technology Fund for St. Lucia

Contact: John Emmanuel

Monday, February 05, 2001- A one million US dollar technology fund aimed at developing a trained cadre of young persons for employment in the expanding information technology (IT) sector is expected to be available for investors to tap into in a matter of months. The Office of Private Sector Relations, housed within the Office of the Prime Minister and devoted to improving public/private sector collaboration is teaming up with the National Development Corporation and the National Commercial Bank in setting up the million-dollar fund.

The fund’s establishment comes as a direct result of growing interest in St. Lucia as an Information Technology (IT) destination, following the deregulation and modernization of the telecommunications sector in the OECS.

According to Economic Policy Advisor in the Office of Private Sector Relations Adrian Augier, who is spearheading the initiative, interest in St. Lucia is dependent on the availability of physical infrastructure and trained people. Said Augier: "In most countries governments have taken that responsibility in ensuring that a trained stock of people is available and we would be non-competitive if we did not do the same. However, since we don’t have large amounts of money to put directly into training forever, what we need to do is to create some other kind of vehicle to achieve this same end."

With collaboration from the National Commercial Bank and the National Development Corporation the fund would be a revolving one that would replenish itself and grow overtime. Investors interested in setting up IT operations will be able to access the fund for training. These borrowers would in turn train their potential employees after a screening process and then those employees through a series of deductions, would repay the fund overtime in a manageable and accommodative way. Those monies would then be available for subsequent investors to borrow and so the island would gradually and according to demand, develop a core of trained young people who would create the base of a new industry.

"We have proposed the idea and the NDC has responded most positively and we have continued to work out the details in conjunction with them so it’s very much a shared process. Clearly it responds to their most pressing need and if there’re going to create investment then there must be able to go out there and say well St. Lucia has certain assets and while we have been creating physical infrastructure for sometime we have not necessarily done the parallel training in human capital which needs to be done as well," said Augier.

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