WorldCity Business Magazine

Bad news for Haiti

by WC

Bad news for Haiti

When the United Nations released its annual Least Developed Countries report for 2006, there was only one country from the Americas among the list: Haiti.

But the odds of the Caribbean nation pushing out of the grouping are slim. Of 42 countries measured, Haiti was at the bottom for GDP growth in 2004, the last full year of data covered by the 352-page report. Haiti’s economy contracted 3.8 percent.

The report found that the country’s food production is falling, the AIDs rate is increasing, road-building targets are “far behind” and 67 percent of the country’s residents live on less than $1 per day. Only two countries in the report had more serious poverty levels: Mali with an estimated 72 percent of its population living on less than $1 and Uganda with 85 percent of its population living in severe poverty.

Haiti’s foreign direct investment was also down in 2004, to 0.2 percent of GDP from 0.3 in 2000.But remittances from Haitians living outside the country had grown dramatically, accounting for nearly 28 percent of gross national income in 2003, the last year that the U.N. report analyzed remittances. In 2002, they were less than 20 percent.

When it came to trade, exports accounted for just more than 11 percent of GDP in 2004. That was a 3 percent increase from 2000. And remittances from Haitians living outside the

According to WorldCity analysis of U.S. Census trade figures, Haiti’s trade with the United States grew 8.8 percent in 2005, closing the year at $1.1 billion. U.S. shipments to the Caribbean country were up 2.2 percent while U.S. imports from Haiti rose 20.6 percent. In 2005, about 73 percent of all U.S. trade with Haiti was handled through the Miami Customs District.

The U.N. report found that nearly 86 percent of Haiti’s exports go to the United States or Canada.