Chairman of the Virgin Islands (VI) Trade Commission Dr Jerry R. Smith says the Virgin Islands (VI) Trade Commission is now in the process of streamlining its operations to provide the best services to the people of the VI. Photo: Team of Reporters

The commission was established as part of a Vision to transform the Virgin Islands (VI) into a leading economy through entrepreneurship, innovation, and local and foreign investment. Photo: GIS/Facebook

The Trade Commission is intended to replace the existing Trade Department. Photo: VINO/File

The Commission was established as part of a vision to transform the Virgin Islands (VI) into a leading economy, through entrepreneurship, innovation, and local and foreign investment.

The aim of the Commission is to further transition the VI into a thriving, vibrant, diversified, and innovative, knowledge-based economy, with an attractive business environment that ensures full employment and full participation in global trade.

Dr Smith, speaking exclusively to Virgin Islands News Online (VINO), said the plan is to "fully comply with the Trade Commission Act.... establishing the Commission, the goal is to transition staff over to the Commission and to gradually implement all of the various aspects of the Commission,” he said.

Improving services - Dr Smtih 

The Chairman said this will start by first improving what already exists, which is the business licensing aspect of the Trade Commission. He explained that the issuing of business licenses by the Trade License Department "doesn’t work very well for the people so we are studying the procedures that are being followed now."

He added that the Board is also seeking to put policies into motion that improve the speed and transparency, and overall quality of services to persons accessing services from the Commission.

“To do that we have to get all the aspects of the Commission running, wanting to do initial staff appointments, get processes going to get our online services up and running… we want to quickly get the entire Commission to where it can do the entire process of trade licenses through online processes,” he said.

Dr Smith detailed that for now, those are the biggest goals with other smaller steps to take. He said the other goal is to make the Commission fully functional in keeping with Government's goals to improve service and provide opportunities for local entrepreneurs as well as for the Commission to become a resource for business development.

Trade Commission being gradually built - Dr Smtih 

When questioned on the six functional areas of the Commission, which include Policy Planning Research and Development, Trade and Export Development, Business Development, Investment Promotion and Facilitation aligned with Licensing and Regulation; and Fair Trade (Fair Competition and Consumer Protection), the Chairman said implementation will be gradual under the Board. 

“We had our first meeting on May 26, 2023, so we are really only in its infancy…we are seeking to crawl before we walk,” he added. 

The Chairman reiterated that first, there must be an improvement of current services offered and then the next step for the calendar year is to build out the leadership of the Commission, since the board is only there for policy and not for daily operations.

As such he said, the board is looking to hire a Trade Commissioner and assured that members of the public will soon see advertainments going out for the position to hire someone to lead the operations of the Commission, and then the next step is for the Commissioner to hire a Director for the various divisions in a 'section by section' build strategy.