By Rick Lowe

One of this bloggers favourite bands, The Who, penned a song titled A trick of the light but The Tribune Business of Wednesday, September 13, 2006 seems to have caught the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Fred Mitchell in a trick of the numbers.

Let me explain.

The front page story quotes Mr. Mitchell as saying that "There had been an explosion of Bahamian trade in recent years – an estimated $150 million US between countries just last year,…"

So being the curious kind I called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ask them to provide the details. I didn’t bother to call the Minister to provide a breakdown of what constituted this amount of trade between The Bahamas and China as I thought he might already be in Cuba celebrating with the ideologues of the Nonaligned Movement.

I then called the Department of Statistics to see what they recorded as imports from China during 2005. They confirmed that we imported $401,392 worth of goods. A far cry from $150 million.

Still confused I called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs again and they suggested I speak with the Chinese Embassy.

So I called the Chinese Embassy and spoke with a very helpful gentleman who informed that there was $155,000,000 of trade between the two countries.

I then pressed for details of this number and was advised that the $155 million included the sale of ships that are registered in The Bahamas, but he could not provide any further details.

Pressing a little further he advised that he thought China imported some $18,000,000 from The Bahamas and this included things like seafood.

Continuing to press I learned that the Chinese numbers do not show the value of goods actually imported by The Bahamas as the ships are only registered here, not owned by Bahamians. Also, some of the $155,000,000 worth of goods could have been transshipped to other nations through the container port in Freeport, Grand Bahama.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am quite thick, and still can’t reconcile how the Department of Statistics could record imports from China at $401,392 while China and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs numbers suggest we imported some $137,000,000 ($155 million total trade less $18 million of exports to China) of goods from China.

So "despite the fact that the information is there for all to see" as Minister Mitchell implored, I am hoping he can clarify these particular numbers for me when he comes back from Cuba.

If he can’t explain the numbers I’m afraid that his statement was merely a trick of the numbers to sell his ideological view that we need an embassy in China. If the department of Statistics numbers are correct, and following the Minister’s logic, The Bahamas imported $5,665,812 from Mexico last year so we must need an embassy there as well?

Addendum: The president of The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce indicated in The Nassau Guardian Business section this morning that "There may be some initial resistance from the exisiting business community" and "trade opportunites with China would "invariably introduce the element of competition" which a protectionist business environment has not prepared them for". This seems an odd statement as it behooves any businessperson to attempt to purchase goods from a cheaper or more direct source. The big "but" is that this does not necessitate the government’s direct involvement. Of course there are risks involved with doing business with China, but those same risks where there when business people started dealing with Japan, Mexico, Brasil and other countries in years gone by without politician’s attempt to direct them.

More on this later.