Above: the new power plant in Caracol

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Haiti seeks to become an “emerging” economy within two decades, and the government needs to create the business environment to allow that to happen, according to Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe.

The Prime Minister was speaking at the opening of a new training workshop on public procurement Monday at the Karibe Convention Centre, as part of a plan to help Haiti’s government ensure the procurement and execution of public contracts by mastering procedures and standards

That will, Lamothe said, help speed up the process.

“Within the horizon of 20 years, the goal is to make Haiti an emerging country,” Lamothe said at the launch. “This will be achieved if we are able today to set up an environment conducive to private investment and a regulatory framework that inspires confidence in potential investors in Haiti.”

Haiti’s National Commission on Government Procurement sets the standard for the country’s public administration, and is responsible for ensuring the regulation and control systems in that area.

“We all dream of Haiti as ‘open for business,'” said Deo Ndikumana, senior country officer for the World Bank in Haiti. “For this, we need skilled managers at the [commission] for public procurement. We need to make standards and procedures clear and transparent — but should never be so stringent as to become [an impediment].”

Lamothe said he and President Michel Martelly were “firmly committed” in a “daily struggle against exclusion and extreme poverty.”