Joe, Yus and others:

Pardon me for making this an abbreviated version of what I would've
normally posted in addition to your interesting comments on this issue.
From what I have read so far, it seems that there is a common notion
that "trade" is generally understood to be the movement of containers full
of goods across the borders. Most of us are, probably rightly so, caught up
in the stigma of large scale trading as the only contributor to the overall
trade balance. We must not forget that in Gambia today, more than half of
the overall international trade is carried out by the small scale business
owners. The individual contributions of such activities might not be
readily visible but if one looks at the bigger pictu
re, you will not fail
to realize their impact on the overall trade balance. Just talk to someone
at one one of the major banks in town.

My point is, we should not get stuck with the notion that in order to gain
from trading with more industrialized nations, we will have to figure a way
to produce en masse thus instantly bringing oursleves down to hopeless
level vis-a-vis competing with other more resourceful nations. We can
surely encourage our small scale traders become fiscally strong to expand
on what they have already built on.
Another aspect of international trade we need to look at is the
intangibles. We definitely do have something to sell to the outside world
in terms culture and traditions, musical and cultural troups, expertise
etc. The more we are able to recognize and build upon what we have and are
able to market to the outside world the better off we shall be in the near
future.
Ofcourse all
 these theories are built on the premise that there is a strong
ambitious leadership that is able to encourage and guide all the players in
the right direction.

Got to go!

Bambalaye.

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