TIA&TW: Haiti Today - Business & Investment

[Music] recently this is America in the world visited the Republic of Haiti we wanted to look beyond the headlines and experience Haiti for ourselves so with a local Haitian camera crew we set out to explore the country's rich culture and very real challenges and we discovered a truly beautiful country with warm welcoming people on this program we'll explore Haiti's need for economic development and jobs will speak with government officials and visit for successful businesses to see firsthand how Haiti's narrative is changing even though there are challenges to overcome Haiti is a country of investment opportunity this is America and the world is brought to you by Whittle school and studios the us-china Education Trust and F Y Chang foundation guided by Julia Chang block president the League of Arab states the roten daro family trust Japan history hospitality and advance technology sharing tomorrow the forerunner foundation dedicated to forward-thinking public policy and the Embassy's series uniting people through musical diplomacy presenting international artists in diplomatic settings in Haiti's capital of port-au-prince I spoke with the governor of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti to understand the country's economic reality and potential what do you think the perception of the economy of Haiti is from the outside looking in what do you think that perception is the perception of 80 is like it's a perception that he that poor country but what they don't see really it's reppuken tree of course but it's a country with a lot of opportunities and opportunities where opportunity is in termina culture I will try I would say that the land in it is almost 100% organic mm-hmm so this is what we are looking for will in a tea we are looking for opportunities we are looking for species in the world market I can see for example for the for the apparel industry the textile industry we had something like the Oprah which allows goods from 80 to go to the U to be exported to the United State free of taxes we would like to have this more of those mechanism in place so that investors can come to it and invest and be able to produce not only for a tea but for export mm-hmm and this I think it's a better way to have a tea than sending money to addict so what the central bank is doing right now is to encourage local investors as well as international investors to invest what would you say would be the the banner headline of the central bank to encourage economic growth well the banner headline would be that like we were saying that last week in a form that we encourage people to go into agriculture a literature agriculture because we are importing 70% of the input is really that - for local consumption goods that we can produce that we are buying from outside mm-hmm so and the value chain is really high because that not only you can produce the goods but you can do a fad a transform those good okay for the 44 local consumption mm-hm and go into agribusiness and so on so you have the order location okay aviation is looking for a job right now so that we have a labor force which is huge but did not ask you that enough work repeat that last sentence again because that's intriguing is that everybody is looking for work everybody every simulation is looking for work okay and this can explain why everybody is taking those weeks on their life to go outside and what the government is doing right now is for many years okay we are nodes so that means food products can be produced somewhere in Jeremy but there's no way you can get them to the place to for consumption infrastructure that's right infrastructure so is looking at an infrastructure infrastructure in term of woods infrastructure in term of Agriculture mm-hmm and what so you have to repair those infrastructure put them in place so that investors can come and invest into agriculture and so on we're not looking for it money we're looking for investor to come so we're looking for partnership really okay so because in the partnership is a win-win situation and also while doing that they can do also the way they helping aid while they are making money it's what we're asking for government thank you for your hospitality thank you for the education take very much it's my pleasure in Haiti we visited a number of very successful businesses Heineken has invested heavily in Hades branagh brewery and its prestes beer and the results have been truly amazing the national 8c so Ghana's the acronym it's a brewery that's been in Haiti since 1973 we actually started with under a PepsiCo license and in 1976 we started throwing prestige which today is the flagship beer brand in the country wouldn't someone says I want a beer they say I want precede how how many workers are working in this complex to make pleased to see it happen and we have 14 brands by the way so it's not just place stage but to make all of that happen we actually have 1400 employees I know what do you say that's like one of the brands what are some of the other brands that are are they brewed here or they made us all made here yeah give me run down some of them so Martha ashes are non-alcoholic malt beverage we also have eNOS which is another beer heavier stop here we have 200 which is an energy drink we have 7up Pepsi King Cola goes on and on and on I think the most fascinating part is first of all the brew house that's what we call the heart of the brewery this is where thing is brewed it's cooked it's mixed and then the other exciting part is actually the production line so seeing the the liquid go into the bottle on the whole process that's the exciting part is it a pride factor in this beer there's a there's a lot of pride when when Haitians think of national identity and they they they look for a reference they think of prestige they think of ba-bong cool rum these are some some key items that are part of our identity today I think also what enabled that to further happen is in 2011 Heineken fully acquired the company Heineken had been part of Ghana since the early 80s and they had about 22 percent shares and then in 2011 summer they completely acquired the company and made some much much needed investments in the company two different rounds of investments a lot of the breweries in the region are little jealous of us within the Heineken world but at one point Makana was producing 30 thousand cases in a year with the investment in the modernization process that we've been going through over the past few years today we can produce forty thousand bottles in one production line in one hour thank you so much for your hospitality the education we just love being here thank you in port-au-prince I met with a businessman born in Haiti raised in the United States and now an American citizen he came back to Haiti to set up a data processing center which assists us dental practices you were born in Haiti right yes I was born and raised in Haiti I left about thirty four years ago so you had a computer science in your background engineering in your background the business in your background from Colombia at Columbia Business School so so you make this circuit and all of a sudden you're back in Haiti how did all that come about I think to use one quote that I think somebody mentioned one time is to say you know how many years citizen now and the gentleman was saying that the United States is almost like a wife first is Haiti's your mother so you can never leave your mother that's the way I think about Haiti is that it's always been home and I think a couple of people that I've spoken with that I've mentioned to them that I've never had a bad day in Haiti tell me about the company here we started 11 years ago companies called be passe be BPO SS so the term is business process outsourcing services and solution but it the full name is be fast so what we do is we work mostly with large group dental practices so dental is probably one twentieth the size of medical but it's a very niche business so not a lot of people know about it which i think is a good so most people know the term if you working and you do a medical billing that's the whole term the new term is revenue cycle management it sounds fancy a good consulting term and the way you think about it is the insurance business a patient comes in you see them you sent a claim and the insurance company by law has 30 days to pay okay so that's the cycle that 30-day cycle so the things that we do is to help to reduce that cycle now there are various other industries we could go to that we will go to but for now that that industry is big enough where we can find five and four five hundred agents closing great to be with you thank you pleasure thank you for your hospitality welcome that's the Haitian way to do it I met with the general director of Haiti's Center for facilitation of investments also known as CF I its mission is promoting new business with in Haiti and most importantly attracting foreign investment tell us what CFI stands for what's your mission what's your goal okay so CFI is the center for facilitation of investments it's basically the country's Investment Promotion agency and so our job is basically to promote opportunities investments in Haiti attract foreign direct investments and also try to encourage the private sector in developing themselves your job is ready to sell Haiti for potential or to potential investors huh how do you go about that to go about it is we have different tactics and different strategies one of them is obviously to represent Haiti and trade fairs in the key sectors that we have the government has identified as being Drive which for the economic force of this country so tourism agriculture textile and apparel hmm BPO and renewable energy is definitely the sector's that we want to push so you submit Jim v BPO meaning Business Process Outsourcing okay okay so we have five areas the government is interested in front so you mentioned fear should be one we also recently started launching campaigns for what we called lead generations where we actually tried to target more specifically what companies could be interested in to coming here so they they say okay Haiti reached out to us what is their image of Haiti even entertaining the idea of coming here the first thing is they would probably think of Haiti as a country that has always been on the radar but with a different perspective he's been hit with a lot of natural disasters Haiti has had political instability but all these things are things that are changing I mean obviously you can't predict and then the next natural disaster will come but I'm gonna as far as political stability obviously the UN mission that was here has gone as has left and we're not we haven't burned down the country yet you know and I don't think it's going to happen so we're definitely on the road to progress I could say we need jobs I mean first and foremost what Haiti needs is for progress is jobs and it's not because the government doesn't create them it's not because the private sector that exists that the Haitian private sector doesn't create them just because they can't create enough yeah which is exactly why we've had such a great focus right now on foreign direct investments coming here and providing these opportunities for our people to actually earn a living and have economic stability and for this country to develop itself even more one of the things that's the most important for me to put out there is not although this is a media outlet obviously but not to believe everything that you see about 80 out there it's we're not just negative there's a lot of great things happening here so if people just could take the time to actually come and see for themselves just come and see for yourself you can you could be you would be pleasantly surprised and I think your experience is probably a testament to that yeah thank you so much for our conversation your hospitality thank you very much menu Tex president Lance Durbin is an American businessman who came to Haiti years ago stayed on and set up a successful electronics business and more recently a craft export service what is menu tech what are the kind of products you make we're an electronic component manufacturer but our niche is magnetics which is basically copper wire wound around a bobbin or some sort of a core and it's either a transformer or an inductor a transformer is two of our wires and inductor is one wire and they come in all sizes in all shapes and you know basically the electrical specifications are determined how many turns and the gauge of the wire and all and how are they used in in what kind of product so basically anytime there's electricity you're going from one voltage to another from direct current to alternating current and transformers are basically the heart of the are the heart of the business mm-hmm the heart of the component so you've got an appliance in your house there's probably a transformer in there some some kind of a transformer is in the appliance at some point so we are doing mostly the lower volume and by that I mean 500 to 5,000 of a part not a million of a part so you won't find our parts in an electric mixer in your kitchen but you would find it in in a plant that might have made an electric mixer or might have you know might go into some medical equipment that you'll run into in hospital what would you say to an American a businessman who was thinking of an investment in Haiti well I think the first thing to do is make a small investment and get a plane ticket come down spend a week plan your trip you know make some contacts down here there's the CFI it's a government entity government supported entity in any event to encourage investors to come to Haiti and so they will you know meet you at the airport hold your hand help set up some meetings with businesses that are already here and so you know if an American investor invests in plane ticket down he can learn a lot in really a fairly few number of days and get some idea of whether whether Haiti would be right for him and you think it might be right for some people oh absolutely I think it would be definitely a you know worthwhile depending on what the US companies doing you know we've been here for thirty close to 40 years now it'll be it'll be 40 years this July and we've been generally very happy with our experiences in northern Haiti I talked with an incredibly innovative and successful Haitian business executive who moved his company from port-au-prince and set up shop in the free zone an industrial part of Carrick all the industrial park idea came after the earthquake 2010 Haiti and at the time because of the human toll that we had in Port Prince it was thought that you know there needed to be a plan of decentralization for the country just in broad strokes what are the kinds of companies that have located in the industrial park well first tenet was a saya SNH Global which is a Korean company that became the anchor tenant for this park without them the park would not have been built so because they're committed to a certain number of buildings and job creation in here that would you know to the viability of the park then I was invited to to the presentation of the park there were some other companies interested at the time and then I asked you know who were the potential Haitian investors into the park and when they told me that there were no Haitians for investors I said well you know if somebody can come from Korea to Haiti to create job and opportunities why not anybody from port-au-prince do the same at least you know also from the north so that's when I you know we needed to do a second paint factory because we have a paint factory in port-au-prince haha so so you have paint factory that's one of your business right but the other one is ropes rope and twine yeah well trying and fabric here and fabric as well how does that process all work the fiber comes from a from an agave plant the plant grows in about two to two and a half years the plant which is maturity that you can start cutting the leaves so what do you do with the leaves where you've got the leaves then you put them into what they call it the corrugator which is a machine that just process the leaves and then after the qualification you get the fiber fiber is in the lead exactly so you kind of like stripping it so the fiber is used to create the rope it's under twine the fiber you prepare it you refine it and then we got you to the twine then with the twine you to the ropes and with the twine it also do the fabric the product is made here is shipped we're selling right now in three main markets in Haiti in the Dominican Republic and also in the US is it a fair statement to say standing here now that Haiti in a way is a land of opportunity it is it is and you know we have we have a lot of bad rap as they say but I think that Haiti's wanted best-kept secret in the Caribbean Haiti is full of life but you can still see signs of the 2010 earthquake in the capital city of port-au-prince Haley's goal now looks far beyond just repairing the damage and devastation of the past the focus today is on sustainability for future generations and building a new city from the ground up I spoke with the executive director for the unit for housing and construction in public buildings tell me a little bit about the agency how it came about and what you envision for this area okay the reason that created this agency is because after the earthquake there were three major priorities we had a million and a half people living in the streets we needed to find a solution for them the reality we had like 250 I don't know maybe some 300,000 homes that were destroyed to be honest port-au-prince had a housing deficit situation before the earthquake that was amplified by the earthquake so we needed to think of housing as well and we had 44 public buildings that were down and the government did not even have means to collect taxes so and when we look at the when they looked at the panorama of government institutions there was there were no government institution that we're looking into housing that we're looking into because all those people living in the streets they came from neighborhoods that were completely destroyed we did not have an agency that was looking at urban problems and also the government was working and they had what we call the palace of ministries right there next to the palace and in 30 seconds the government has nowhere to serve people they don't have any offices to host ministries ministers and services functions so those three elements and that's how we created you CIB which is the agency for rico for housing which is a big problem and b construction of public buildings we're talking about government buildings destroyed housing for the general population and also the infrastructure of the capital city of the country huh destroyed completely when you look at the blueprint of the master plan what buildings have been completed what's underway of what still agreed we have a I could say a good half a dozen of buildings that are finished we have another half of building that are already sturdy there waiting to be constructed and we also have three very important building that are coming in a near future and it's the three symbols of governance it's the National Palace the House of Representatives what we call the Parliament Parliament yeah and justice system how does the general public feel about what's happening they feel a lot of pride with with the reconstruction but particularly the government reconstruction initiative they feel a lot of pride also we have some housing in very precarious neighborhoods and where we practically shifted these people's lives around your people that were living in one-story 20 18 square meters now they have 45 to 50 square meters they have separated rooms for the parents and the kids deaf left eyelids and things that are very basic but that people did not have access and this is exactly what we're doing is that we are we are raising the minimum standards rebuilding is an opportunity to bring Haiti to the level where it should be hmm are you satisfied with the progress of where we are right now I want me in my position like I do not have the right to be satisfied okay not until we're finished and I suppose that a lot of us won't be active in this in the next 15 to 20 years but we're working and not being satisfied is what we use to keep it going we have to keep it going push push push push push push thank you so much thanks to you thanks for having us thank you we appreciate [Music] special thanks for the warm hospitality of the Marriott port-au-prince hotel for information about this is America and the world and to watch all of our programs visit our website this is America dotnet and look for us on Facebook and Twitter you can listen to all of our ambassador interviews on our podcast the Ambassador series it's available on our website and iTunes this is America and the world is brought to you by Whittle school and studios the us-china Education Trust & FY Chiang foundation guided by julia chiang block president the League of Arab states the Wroten daro family trust Japan history hospitality and advanced technology sharing tomorrow the forerunner foundation dedicated to forward-thinking public policy and the embassies series uniting people through musical diplomacy presenting international artists in diplomatic settings [Music]

Channel: ThisIsAmericaTV

Views: 141,000

Rating: 4.6491227 out of 5

Keywords: CFI, Brana, Heineken, Manutech, Haiti, Port-au-Prince, Sisalco, Sisal, Tourism, Investment, Trade, Dennis Wholey, PBS, thisisamericatv, Keke, Republic of Haiti, Bank of the Republic of Haiti, Tessa Jacques, Jean Baden Dubois, Clément Bélizaire, Regine René Labrousse, Pierre Yves Gardère, BPOSS

Id: IThxJpVVtXA

Length: 26min 45sec (1605 seconds)

Published: Fri May 18 2018