George Hulse, thank you so much. That's such a nice introduction. George and I share of the privilege of working with Mark Jaffe at the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, who is also very active here and, George and I are on the Board of GNYCC.  

I've been a part of CACCI for many years. I met my brother, Dr. Roy Hastick in 2009. We became very close and very good friends.   I proudly display these these great honors medal that I've been awarded for support and leadership to small business and CACCI Members. 

I'm also excited to be here. This is a great organization and it's a great time. Before I move into that, I want to thank William Lake and Miss Anna Walker and the other people who have been so gracious to invite me to participate in this.

Dr. Hastick always started these meetings by saying "networking works" and "CACCI networking works".  So I'm not there with you to give a business card, but I will give you my phone number to start and you can text me to connect with me.  This is the easiest way to get connected and to follow through. My phone number is 646-920-4652 I'll repeat this later. 646-920-4652.

I want to just start by saying that we've been through a very terrible time with a pandemic. I want to put things in context today. I'm excited about the great opportunities because the great opportunities are expanding for the Caribbean community. And the pandemic created the greatest economic development opportunities that we've seen since I think maybe the industrial revolution. It created huge wealth. People have identified ways to get money to have access to capital and to invest it and to create opportunities all over the world. This is particularly true in the United States, and between the United States and the Caribbean Basin countries. I included that Puerto Rico, which is also a part of the Caribbean islands, but sometimes not tracked the same way because it's a district of United States.

We've created this, this incredible series of opportunities because of CHANGE. Change has a lot of UNCERTAINTY that comes with it. And we have a lot of uncertainty that's piling up in front of us with inflation, with supply chain issues, with problems around the world politically, geopolitically, with China falling out of favor, etc. And this creates great opportunities for us, particularly for the Caribbean community because there are already existing US Trade Agreements and favorable tariffs in place. There are existing programs like, like Mr. Betts just described where taxes and economic development make it a very great place to invest.  The  New York business community has develop relationships and investments in the Caribbean communities.

It was mentioned that there's an 80 million population of people living in the Caribbean.  We have a 20 million population in New York, and there's about a 20 million population in Florida. Even combined and including Texas, we are not quite as big as the Caribbean community.

Take things like food. We're the largest provider of food and food processing to the Caribbean Islands. We are the largest importer of various kinds of things, apparel, technology, and there's all kinds of tariff arrangements  between the United States and the Caribbean islands.

My role in CACCI has changed over the years. I originally came in because I was a collaborator with my Long Island City Chamber of Commerce in Queens. Then I joined the Red Apple Group and I was a member of the CACCI organization representing John Catsimatidis. I was an active participant and continue to be a very active participant and advisor to all the board members.

I just feel that there's such opportunity and I'm an entrepreneur. So as I was preparing for this, these comments today, I thought to myself, well, what can I do? How can I, as an entrepreneur, look at this opportunity and and bring forward something that will help the CACCI members, and brings forward something that will help  ACCI itself, and bring forward something that will help the countries. So I've decided to launch, as part of my SFBDG platform...and you can learn more about that when you when you text me... a new office of Caribbean Trade export / import, Investment, and Travel and Tourism.

I happen to be very fortunate to have a tremendous resource of contacts and relationships. My business does nothing but introductions and referrals. I can package a lot of information, package a lot of access to capital and resources not unlike an Economic Development Corporation. Not only CACCI but I want to be supportive of all of the organizations and all the members of CACCI. So that's what I'm doing. I'm creating an office of a Caribbean Trade, Investment and Travel and Tourism. I have great relationships there.  Just thinking about how wonderful all the countries are. I became friendly with people in governments like Barbados. Marie Amor Motley and Liz Thompson are a great friends. They boldly separated themselves from the United Kingdom. Even a small country has corrected a lot of the things that were troubling it for many years in terms of some corruptions and financial mismanagement, and they're just doing great and we want to see the Travel and Tourism aspect of all the countries come back. Medical Tourism will become a very important thing. Biotech development will become a very important thing.  I'm involved with all those things. So I invite you all  to get to know the resources that I have organized. that I'm able to marshal them for you. Not only CACCI, but through the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce and through George there's just so many great opportunities.

We have challenges. But those challenges mean you have to think about the the opportunities that are created by those new uncertain things that are ahead and where you can find the resources and know the resources that you can tap into. I always tell people that the great the Long Island City history Chamber of Commerce, the most important thing is to know your resources and know how to tap into them and there are so many resources.

Before I finalize my comments, I just want to address the issue of education because I'm doing that here and in the Long Island City still. I formed the Friends of Information Technology High School to engage the business community. We're still very active, actively doing that with the principal there, Miss Woods Powell. And one of the things that I focused on over the past few months is the career path issues. We have students that are graduating school that have lost two years of their education and this is a precious part of the future of New York City and the Caribbean community. We have to work together to help these students who have been disadvantaged by the COVID attack and Pandemic against our schools. So I want to just pay particular attention to recognizing not just the education, but the career path that comes from that education, and how we help these young people along their path. We really have to reach back to nine year olds today because these young people have to be mentored and the only way to really correct the disruption that was taking place is through mentoring. So I invite all of you to really look for ways in the school system that we have in New York City to mentor students and help them get established in their new lives. And this is the strength of New York City in the future.

So God bless you all right, Dr. Hastick and I held hands around the table many times. So you know, I hope we do that at the end of this meeting. Because, you know, that's so important. I remember bringing John Catsimatidis to Roy's home at one time during 2013. After the meeting with a small group, we stood to hold hands while Dr. Hastick led us in a prayer for the city of New York.

I see George's face. He's going to cut me off. Hold hands around the table, George.

Thank you. God bless you all.

Yes, yes. 646-920-4652. And if you'd like I'll give you the website that you could get to look. 

SFBDG.cityentree.com

We're going to open Gateway Hubs in the various countries to offer access Meet & Greets and other other things. We'll organize that.

Your are fantastic.

Thank you for everything and it's so good to be here. And God bless everyone.

This transcript was generated by https://otter.ai and edited by Arthur Rosenfield

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CARIBBEAN BASIN

28 COUNTRIES COMPARE POPULATION

There are 28 countries in the Caribbean.  It may take some addition to compare to a single large country. For example, the population of all these countries together is 42.0 million.  The population of New York State is 19.9 million.  The population of Texas is 28.3 million. Florida population is 20.9 million.  I suspect that the various Central American and South American countries on the Gulf coast that are part of the Caribbean Basin, would indirectly add a lot more to the pot of opportunity.

As of June 2013     , the Caribbean-American population of the United States was approximately 11.1 million (Note that these populations are not mutually exclusive, as people may be of more than one ancestry or ethnic group). Some of the largest Caribbean ancestry groups in the U.S. include:

4.9 million Puerto Ricans

1.9 million Cubans

1.6 million Dominicanos

1.0 million Jamaicans

908,000 Haitians

196,000 Trinidadians and Tobagonians

62,000 Bajans

53,000 Bahamians

17,000 U.S. Virgin Islanders

U.S.-Western Hemispheres Trade Facts

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/americas

U.S. Trade in Goods by Country

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/index.html

Caribbean Basin: Exporter Guide

December 19, 2019   |   Attaché Report (GAIN)

Link to report: Caribbean Basin: Exporter Guide

In 2018, the United States exported over $1 Billion in U.S. consumer-oriented products to the Caribbean Basin. With limited agricultural production, most Caribbean islands rely heavily on imported food products, particularly from the United States. The United States, with a 53 percent market share, is the main supplier of food products to the Caribbean. This report aims to provide U.S. suppliers general information on export opportunities in the Caribbean Basin.

Caribbean Basin: Exporter Guide

https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Exporter%20Guide_Miami%20ATO_Caribbean%20Basin_12-31-2019

Office of United States Trade Representative.

Countries and Regions

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions#:~:text=The%20top%20five%20suppliers%20of,Union%2027%20were%20%24515%20billion.

Import Trade with Puerto Rico

https://www.google.com/search?q=import+trade+with+Puert+Rico&oq=import+trade+with+Puert+Rico&aqs=chrome..69i57.31915j0j7&client=ms-android-tmus-us-revc&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Exports Between the United States and Puerto Rico: When to File Electronic Export Information

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/global-reach/2020/07/exports_between_the.html

Haiti Exports - March 2022 Data - 2008-2021 Historical - April Forecast - Chart - News

https://tradingeconomics.com/haiti/exports#:~:text=Haiti%20mostly%20exports%20clothing%2C%20scrap,Dominican%20Republic%20and%20Netherland%20Antilles

● IMPORTANCE OF EXPORT OF SERVICES

Leading services imports from Western Hemisphere to the U.S. were in the travel, insurance services, and transportation sectors.