Post-quake Haiti project ‘a work in progress’

By Jacqueline Charles,  jcharles@MiamiHerald.com

While visiting this one-time bean field in Haiti’s northeast region, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared it was a new day.

“We had learned that supporting long-term prosperity in Haiti meant more than providing aid,” Clinton told a roomful of star-studded investors at a luncheon celebrating the opening of the United States’ largest post-quake investment in October 2012. “It required investments in infrastructure and the economy that would help the Haitian people achieve their own dreams.”

Nearly three years after the opening of the Caracol Industrial Park, some wonder if Clinton and others underestimated what it would take to create jobs and the environment for sustainable economic growth in a country riddled with disaster and political gridlock.

“Caracol is still on crutches,” said former Finance Minster Marie Carmelle Jean-Marie.

In the nearby town of Caracol, several say that the park hasn’t transformed their lives as promised. “The park doesn’t benefit the people of Caracol,” said Renel Marseil, 31. “The foreigners have taken over Caracol for themselves.”

Billed as a stepping stone to helping Haiti cut its dependence on foreign assistance in favor of trade, the complex today employs 6,200 Haitians, most of them garment workers sewing T-shirts, leggings and sweatshirts for Target and Walmart. The number is just 10 percent of the 60,000 promised. And while an informal State Department study shows that 1,000 mom-and-pop businesses have opened in nearby communities since the park’s arrival, the large multiplier effect proponents hoped Caracol would generate, hasn’t happened.

Supporters say it remains “a work in progress” that can still meet expectations. They point out that it has contributed $100 million in exports to Haiti’s limping economy while accounting for 60 percent of the apparel jobs created since the country’s devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake. The park’s $12 million annual payroll from its five commercial tenants also is boosting the local economy.

“So far it has mostly met our projections,” said Thomas Adams, special coordinator in the U.S. State Department Haiti Office that oversees U.S. engagement in the country. “Job creation there has grown steadily.”

Last month, the U.S. Congress extended trade preferences for Haiti to 2025. The preferences allow Haitian-sewn apparel to enter the U.S. duty free and fabric can come from anywhere in the world. The extension wasn’t the 2030 date that the Association of Industries of Haiti pushed for, but it allows for further growth of the industry’s 36,000 jobs, and for Caracol to attract additional foreign investment.

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