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PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 18 (IPS) – The Haitian business sector is giving the government here high marks for its willingness to reform the country's economy.

''This is the first time in 40 years I have seen a government so open to dialogue with the private sector,'' said Gilbert Bigio, owner of the northern Caribbean country's main steel mill.

After three days of talks with the private sector the government late Wednesday announced a series of measures to promote the growth and modernisation of the Haitian economy.

Attended by some 400 businessmen from the provinces and the Haitian communities in the United States, the economic forum saw a total of eight decrees drawn up to improve the business climate in the country.

These decrees are to be presented to the Cabinet to be signed within the next few days, said Economy Minister Lesley Voltaire.

The private sector appears particularly pleased with plans to deal with anti-trust cartels and to create a multilateral agency guaranteeing investments (MEGA).

Some ten accompanying measures intended to facilitate economic activities either will be adopted or studied by the government within the next few days, Voltaire said.

Principal among these measures is a provision concerning the supply of a minimum four hours of electricity daily to the industrial zone of the capital. This is to begin in June.

The supply of electricity, previously reduced to three hours a day in metropolitan Port-au-Prince, has been raised to between six and 18 hours daily within the last two weeks.

Other plans include a reduction in the number of holidays to 14 as provided by the Haitian Constitution, elimination of export inspections and financial audits and the reorganisation of the National Insurance Bureau after which it will be put under the joint management of the government, the trade unions and employers.

Additionally a special bank account will be opened to receive gifts and investments from Haitians living abroad and which are intended for the development of the country.

Likewise the Tripartite Commission comprising the state, employers and trade unions, will seek to resolve 'troublesome' articles in the Labour code and will launch a study of new labour contracts.

Some 150,000 new telephone lines will be commissioned into service, part of a wider plan to install a new digital telephone exchange capable of being integrated into the international telecommunications network.

The cabinet will be studying a petition from the business sector to exempt assembly plants from paying both wharfage duties on imports and taxes on exports up to the end of the year, Voltaire said.

Additionally a study will be made of a new scale of tariff rates to be paid in a lump sum by exporting firms.

After the three-day meeting the government signed letters of intent to start work on five projects presented by some of the richest families in the country.

These include the construction of a 200 million dollar commercial port and industrial free zone in north-east Haiti, the brainchild of the Brandt industrial group.

To do this Brandt has succeeded in getting the government to annul two concessionary contracts signed in 1989 with two foreign companies for the creation of a free zone in the same area.

Other projects are aimed at setting up new industrial zones; in Gonaives 177 km north of the capital and in Port au Prince; the building of a tourist village on Cow Island in southern Haiti and the introduction of a collective insurance policy covering all civil servants.

''The government intends to encourage the creation of free zones in order to help develop the provincial regions of the country,'' said a source in the Ministry of the Economy.

The government also says it plans to give rural investments priority and to do this it will place funds in banks to be used solely for loans to the farming sector. (end/ips/ne/imc/da/95)

Origin: Kingston/HAITI-ECONOMY/

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[c] 1994, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)

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