subject: The St Lucia Adventure [print this page] The island is located in the Eastern side of the Caribbean Sea. It is part of the Lesser Antilles area. It borders some important locations such as St Vincent, Grenadines, Barbados and Martinique. The total land coverage for the area is about six hundred and twenty square kilometres (or two hundred and thirty eight square miles). The population of the city has been estimated at about one hundred and sixty thousand people. The capital is known as Castries. There are also some famous people in the form of Derek Walcott and Arthur Lewis. They were Nobel Laureates. That means that it is the second highest nation in terms of Laureates after the Faroe Islands.
The economic organisation of St Lucia
Tourism is the backbone of the economy and there have been many improvements geared towards making the tourism successful. There is also a significant banana production outfit as well as some light manufacturing. The people of the area are fairly well educated. The infrastructure has benefitted from the government efforts to try and make tourism much more effective in the area. There has been a problem with the declining number of visitors because of the recession and other conditions that are unavoidable.
The island nation has been the beneficiary of European trade preferences but now that is being cut as well. Therefore the solution has been to increase the diversification of crops within St Lucia in the hope that it will reduce the dependency on the vagaries of the international markets.
The other string to their bow is to try and improve conditions for foreign investment. The theory is that with the improved conditions the people are much more likely to take up the issues that the country finds important. The banana industry will require support to overcome the world economic conditions.
The position of St Lucia
As part of the Caribbean, the island has been the beneficiary of a strong tourist industry but it also faces the dependency that makes the development superficial. They are too reliant on the global markets. The European Union in particular has its own trade objectives and would not hesitate to throw them under the bus if the Common Agricultural Policy was threatened in any way. Therefore the tourism becomes the next best alternative. This is still recovering from the issues of the global downturn. It remains to be seen whether the impact will be lasting or it will be just a temporary blip.
