St. Lucia faces a large and growing trade deficit as merchandise imports far exceed exports. While services exports help, they are not enough to offset the merchandise trade imbalance. St. Lucia's exports are overly concentrated in a few markets and products like bananas, fresh papayas, and manufactured goods. The trade deficit presents challenges for debt and economic growth, highlighting the need to promote new and diversified export opportunities.

1. EXPORT BULLETIN
Special Bulletin of the Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN)
ISSUE # 5 February 2010 |1
Trade Overview CONTENTS
Trade Overview P.1
In 2008, the St. Lucian economy spent circa US$4.1bn more in merchandise
Exports Overview P.2
imports (i.e. goods) than merchandise exporters earned. The St. Lucian economy
continues to face serious growth challenges including an ever expanding
international trade deficit. The problem of the ballooning trade deficit is
compounded by the fact that even with revenue from the services sector, the
economy still spends more on imports than it generates from export sales. This
ultimately has significant implications on international debt, and provides a
strong motive for the promotion of viable exports. This bulletin attempts to
provide information on some of those viable export opportunities.
Fig. 1: St. Lucia’s merchandise trade performance
ST. LUCIA
Official Name: Saint Lucia
Area: 619 sq. km. (238 sq. mi.)
Capital: Castries (pop. 67, 000)
Population (2005 UN estimate)
152, 000
Currency: Eastern Caribbean Dollar
($EC)
Terrain: Mountainous.
Climate: Tropical
Airport: Hewanorra International
Source: tradeMAP database, retrieved January 27, 2010 Airport
George F. L. Charles
Airport
Source: OTN Information Unit 2010
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2. |2
Between 2001 and 2008, merchandise export sales increased by 3.7% annually to expand from US$71.9 to US$93mn.
Merchandise import expenditure experienced hyper growth as between 2001 and 2008, merchandise import expenditure
grew by over 36% annually. Ultimately this lead to a swollen merchandise trade deficit which expanded from US$407mn
in 2001 to over US$4bn in 2008.
In 2007, St. Lucian services exporters generated US$347mn in sales, whilst the St. Lucian market absorbed US$176.4mn in
import spending, therefore generating an intangibles (services) trade surplus of circa US$170mn. The services surplus
however, was not adequate to address the massive merchandise trade deficit which implies that there is still the need to
promote greater exports of goods and services.
Export Overview
St. Lucia’s exports are not adequately diversified both in terms of the products, services1 exported, and the markets which
are serviced. St. Lucia’s top export market in 2008 was the United Kingdom (UK). The UK accounted for over 36% of the
total merchandise export earnings in 2008. In 2008, other top export markets included The USA (29.4% of 2008
merchandise export earnings); Trinidad & Tobago (10.4%); Barbados (7.7%); Dominica (4.4%); Jamaica (3%); St. Vincent &
the Grenadines (2.7%); Mexico (1.3%); Guyana (1.2%) and France (1%).
The most dynamic markets for exports from St. Lucia between 2004 and 2008 included Venezuela (159% growth per
annum); South Africa (126%); Australia (83%); Jamaica (71%); Chinese Taipei (46%); Japan (38%); Denmark (33%); Guyana
(27%); Switzerland (23%) and Germany (21%). These markets could be amongst those for any priority market penetration
activities based on the strength of the growth trend. However, these dynamic export markets are not major sources of
export earnings as they jointly accounted for 5.7% of the total earnings for St. Lucian exporters in 2008.
The top exports are detailed below.
Table. 1: St. Lucia’s Top 15 Exports
1
St. Lucia’s services export earnings are concentrated in travel services (i.e. tourism). In 2007, St. Lucia earned over 85% of the total services export earnings
from travel services. In 2007, other dominant services exports included other miscellaneous business, professional and technical services; communication
services; and other direct insurance services.
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3. |3
In 2008, St. Lucia’s top 15 products generated over 88% of total export earnings. Therefore, these products are major
export poles. The top 15 exports are composed mainly of manufactured products, with bananas and fresh papayas the
main agricultural exports featuring in this category. Also of interest is the intermittent export performance of aerial
reflectors, thermometers, electrical resistors and coaxial cable.
Between 2004 and 2008, St. Lucia’s most dynamic merchandise exports included natural sands (166% growth in sales per
annum); fermented beverages (eg cider, perry, mead etc) (139%); pebbles gravel, broken or crushed stone used for
aggregates etc (135%); film and sheet etc, cellular of plastics (126%); fresh papaws (98%); automatic regulating or
controlling instruments and apparatus (91%); electric conductors, for a voltage not exceeding 80v fitted with connectors
(88%); cartons, boxes and cases, folding, of non‐corrugated paper or paperboard (86%); boxes, cases, crates and similar
articles of plastic(83%); books, brochures, leaflets and similar printed matter (76%) and perfumes and toilet waters
(75%). These exports have potential for diversifying the export base.
St. Lucia exports a number of products in which they were ranked in the top thirty exporting nations in 2008. Based on
their top 30 export share, these products should be a priority of any export development programme and included
tarpaulins, awnings and sunblinds of cotton (5th); paper, gummd/adhesive, cut to size, in strips/rolls (14th); fresh papayas
(25th); woven emery, natural corundum, garnet, natural abrasives (26th); bananas (26th); thermometers, not combined
with other instruments (28th); and cocoa paste wholly of partly defatted (30th).
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