CDB studies how much cash culture brings to the Caribbean 

By Dana Malcolm

Staff writer

April 17, 2023 – Intellectual property based activity encompasses a wide range of events including carnivals, festivals, and more, all of which contribute to the GDP of their respective countries and with a new study, the Caribbean Development Bank is trying to find out just how much cash they bring in.

The study, called ‘Validating the Creative Industries: Research and New Data for the Region,’ was created to find current quantitative data on the impact of these activities and focused on four countries: St Lucia, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Grenada.

Richard Harris, Deputy Director of Statistics in St. Lucia led the project.

“This project seeks to build capacity in the area of copyright and creative industries statistics that have traditionally not been very well represented in our national accounts and gross domestic product (GDP) numbers, even though we know that this activity is an important economic driver,” he explained.

In the Turks and Caicos, this would include cultural events, like Muskanoo, the Valentine’s Day Cup, the South Caicos Regatta and beloved Island Fish Fry.  The project actively trained several officers from different statistical departments across countries on producing more robust statistics on these industries with the funding from the CDB.

Harris said the economic advantage of these industries should not be understated, and what the cultural and creative industries need is  “strong empirical data to back those assertions and to help guide us in our economic planning.”

“Frankly, the value of contributions of copyright-based industries to the economy is generally untapped because we have focused our attention so much on traditional industries such as tourism and manufacturing, ” he said.

The aim of the project is to provide relevant information along with training for statisticians, to allow countries to truly see the potential of these industries and invest in them even more.