By Jim Loney
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Declaring Haiti "open for business," Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis welcomed hundreds of potential INVESTOR (INVEB.ES) on Thursday to a conference meant to kick-start an economy stunted by decades of political turmoil.
The organizer, the Inter-American Development Bank, hopes the star power of former U.S. President Bill Clinton can lure new business to the poorest country in the Americas, where 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2 (1.25 pounds) a day.
Local officials said the meeting was the largest investment conference ever held in Haiti and had attracted U.S. apparel heavyweights like Gap, American Eagle Outfitters and Levi Strauss and a host of Latin American textile firms. International banks including Canada's Scotiabank and U.S. giant Citi had representatives on hand to discuss loans.
"Haiti is open for business," Pierre-Louis told a crowded convention hall in French and English. "At the government, we are doing our share. Now we turn to you and ask you to do yours," she said, adding, "Time is of the essence."
In a speech to investors, Clinton, who was named U.N. special envoy to Haiti in May, noted that representatives of the World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, which offers political-risk guarantees to investors, were attending the meeting.
"That should be an encouraging sign, although I can tell you your political risk in Haiti is lower than it has been in my lifetime," Clinton said to applause.
Pierre-Louis cited improved security in Haiti, roiled for decades by military dictatorship and political and gang violence. About 9,000 officers have been trained for the Haitian National Police force, created when the dreaded army was disbanded in the mid-1990s, to work alongside a U.N. peacekeeping force of about 9,150 soldiers and police.
The conference was largely focussed on agriculture and textiles and began on the day Haiti's new minimum wages kicked in. Approved by the legislature last month, the minimum for textile workers rises from 70 gourdes, about US$1.75, to 125 gourdes, or US$3.10, per day. For most other workers, the minimum rises from 70 to 200 gourdes, or about US$5.00 a day.
Georges Sassine, president of Haiti's Industrial Association, said there was "tremendous" interest in low-cost Haiti from Latin American garment companies. He toured northern areas with a dozen business people this week.
"They are looking at setting up textile mills and factories," he said.
Haiti's garment manufacturing industry, which employed some 130,000 people in the 1980s but shrivelled to only a few thousand in recent years, has been reinvigorated by the passage in Washington last year of the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE II) Act.
DUTY-FREE TEXTILES
It allows textile products to enter the United States duty-free in unlimited quantities if they are cut and sewn in Haiti regardless of where the fabric originated. Sassine said the sector has added 11,000 jobs in a year.
"Definitely we can double the (130,000) number in three or four years if we do it correctly," he said.
Mark D'Sa, a production manager for Gap, said the investment climate was improving. "Gap definitely sees potential in Haiti," he said. "The macroeconomic environment is improving."
He said Gap had bought just under $30 million (18 million pounds) in finished goods in Haiti this year but said expansion of that total would depend on major investments by others in textile mills and other infrastructure.
"The industry has grown but now it has reached that critical mass where you need textile investments," D'Sa said. "We don't invest in manufacturing."
The IDB announced a $25 million grant to Haiti on Thursday to help improve the southern road network but the conference had not yet produced any other major investment announcements.
Clinton's Global Initiative has received $428 million in pledges for Haiti in the last two years, including $258 million this year. But he chided donor nations last month for failing to deliver on their pledges.
"Whatever we say we're going to do, we need to keep our word," he said on Thursday. "Haitians have had pie-in-the-sky promises from local people and foreigners for long enough."
(Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva, editing by Jane Sutton and Philip Barbara)
