|**Country Name**|**Table 1: E**<br>**Surface**<br>**Area (sq.**<br>**km)**|**conomic Indic**<br>**Population**<br>**(persons)**|**ators for the**<br>**GDP**<br>**(US$**<br>**millions)**|**Caribbean**<br>**GDP**<br>**per**<br>**Capita**<br>**PPP**|**Countries,**<br>**GDP**<br>**Growth**<br>**(annual**<br>**%)**|**2011.**<br>**CPI**<br>**Inflation**<br>**(%**<br>**change)**|**Gross**<br>**Debt to**<br>**GDP**<br>**Ratio**<br>**(% of**|**Current**<br>**Account**<br>**Balance**<br>**(% of**<br>**GDP**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||||||||**GDP)**|**)**|
|||S<br>|mall Island S<br>|tates<br>|||||
|Antigua and Barbuda|440|89,069|1,007|19,714|2.85|3.38|87.82|-6.92|
|Dominica|750|71,684|450|9,629|-1.73|1.44|73.31|-11.45|
|Grenada|340|105,483|683|11,786|0.61|2.41|108.53|-27.97|
|St. Kitts and Nevis|260|53,584|599|20,895|6.94|1.41|137.01|-9.23|
|St. Lucia|620|180,870|1,086|10,242|0.46|4.18|71.69|-14.88|
|St. Vincent and the<br>|390|109,373|606|10,271|2.29|2.60|71.66|-30.29|
|Grenadines<br>|||Regional Hu<br>|bs<br>|||||
|The Bahamas|13,880|371,960|7,842|22,705|1.83|1.97|51.18|-18.40|
|Barbados|430|283,221|4,064|15,299|0.01|4.53|85.80|-4.93|
|Dominican Republic|48,670|10,276,621|51,937|11,016|3.89|3.69|30.19|-6.84|
|Jamaica|10,990|2,707,805|14,755*|8,421|-0.45|6.90|146.89|-12.91|
|Trinidad and Tobago|5130|1337439|18969|29086|1.52|9.26|36.86|12.29|
||,|,,<br>Co|,<br>ntinental Cari|,<br>bbean|||||
|Belize|22,970|324,060|1,377|8,438|5.29|1.32|75.42|-1.34**|
|Guyana|214,970|795,369|1,016|6,054|4.82|2.39|64.27|-13.85|
|Suriname|163,820|534,541|2,394|15,174|3.88|5.01|22.14|4.75|
||||<br>Fragile Stat|<br>e|||||
|Haiti|27,750|10,173,775|4,677|1,575|2.82|6.28|16.38|-4.45|

_Source: World Development Indicators (2013). *Data from Jamaica from World bank, (2014a). **Current Account Balance data from IMF Indicators 2014. Data for Belize and Trinidad from 2011 and Barbados from 2010._ Being mostly islands one can comfortably say that they have the natural physical barrier imposed by the surrounding sea mass. This leads to higher costs for developing infrastructure and creates a markup to overcome on the logistics costs of traded goods. Exchanges of goods and services with the rest of the world are limited to two transport modes, air and maritime, which are in general expensive and/or require an important investment in infrastructure assets. These modes are also very special in that they are defined by the dynamics of international flows and in that trade corridors are strongly influenced (and sometimes determined) by geography.

From an economic viewpoint, Caribbean countries seem to have in common high debt-GDP ratios, single digit inflation and, most notably, all are net importers (Table 1).

In fact, Caribbean countries relied on agricultural exports as the main source of hard currency until the 1990s. In the 1990s, however, the Caribbean economies suffered a collapse of their main export products, sugar and bananas, as a consequence of trade liberalization. Liberalization resulted in an erosion of preferential agreements with Europe, and both the banana and the sugar industries were unable to compete globally. The economies became stagnant and the limited competitiveness of some Caribbean economies in agricultural products became evident. With the exception of Suriname, Caribbean countries 9