By VERNON CLEMENT JONES, Senior Business Reporter

vernon@nasguard.com

Recent inclusion of Haiti as a member of the Caribbean Development Bank may hold economic benefits for its Bahamian neighbor.

Arrangements for the poorest nation in the western hemisphere to take full membership in the Bank were completed last week, effectively vaulting Haiti's status in the region at the same time improving its long-term economic outlook.

"We have been working assiduously over the past two years to bring Haiti into the (Bank's) family," said its President Dr Compton Bourne.

The announcement marks the beginning of a series of discussions between Haitian officials and technical staff of the region's third largest lending institution.

They will work to determine how exactly "the Bank can target its interventions in Haiti," said Bourne.

Haiti is now classified as a borrowing member country, and as such is eligible to receive loan and grant financing, as well as technical assistance from the Bank.

Oddly enough The Bahamas - the nation in the region with the largest per capita income - has held the same borrowing status with that institution since 1970.

Any help the Bank can afford the world's first independent black nation can only benefit us here, say Bahamian officials.

A multi-million-dollar investment toward Haiti's infrastructure or the reinvigoration of its agricultural industry would likely bluster employment opportunities.

Still, even with assets in excess of $1 billion, the Bank's technical support may be the most valuable thing it lends Haiti.

Whether in the form of money or know-how, the assistance is expected to help discourage Haitian emigration, curbing the number of illegals entering The Bahamas and the US.

Haiti's volatile economic and social instability has kept the Bank from extending it full membership since opening in 1969.

With this newest admission, the development organization now has 26 member countries in the Caribbean, Latin America, North America and Europe. Not all, however, are able to access its lending function.