5 oktober 2006: Speech by the Governor-General of the Netherlands Antilles Mr. Frits Goedgedrag at the occasion of The 45th National Convention of theJunior Chamber International Dutch Caribbean JCI

Ladies and Gentlemen:

First of all, let me thank JCI Dutch Caribbean for its kind invitation to join you on this 45th National Convention. For this convention, it must be hard to find a more inspiring place than the MCB Office, since this bank is very well known for its excellent entrepreneurship. And excellent entrepreneurship is what you as JCI are striving for.

But let me first offer a warm welcome to all our guests from abroad. Be sure that we are proud to have you here in our lovely country and our “Dushi Korsow”, in particular. I hope you can find the time to get to know our beautiful Island and its wonderful people.

Let me go back to the issue of entrepreneurship. During various occasions, I have had the opportunity to give speeches on topics related to businesses and economic growth. I feel entrepreneurship is at the heart of economic development, nowadays. I think, mainly through the decline of communist regimes in the world, being a supporter of capitalist oriented economies is not a thing to be loathed for. On the contrary, today, nations that wish to participate in all the benefits that globalization has to offer, need to be focused and prepared for open markets and fair competition.

The most important way to achieve this is, is to facilitate the right environment for the main vehicle of economic development, that is, the enterprise sector. Providing the right conditions can be done at the macroeconomic policy level: a country should design and implement an adequate macroeconomic policy framework. That means that governments should avoid high public debts and must aim for stable prices, or in other words, low inflation. That will, in turn stimulate domestic and foreign investments. That does not mean that that will lead to economic growth. There are other conditions that determine the degree of growth. Let me elaborate on the issue that I consider crucial for economic growth and, with that, even more important, overall development. That issue is human development. If we really want our economies to flourish and if we wish our societies to be developed, we have to invest in our people. That means, education in the broad sense, vocational training, academic research and so on. Those are the key issues for a country to become a developed and civilized society. If we do not invest in our human resources, that is people, whether young or old, we will not be prepared for the global and competitive world around us.

It is, therefore that I am very positive about the role that JCI is playing; we need to invest in our young, potential entrepreneurs in order to be competitive. Only if we train our young and enthusiast entrepreneurs, we will be able to keep up at the international level. Good luck with your efforts that will promote the entrepreneurial sector of our economy and I wish you all the best during this 45th Convention.

Thank you.

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