|
|
Print-friendly version
Bahamas
Area: 13,939 sq. km. (5 382 sq. miles.)
Population: (2006 est): 303,770
Capital City: The two most populated areas are the capital, Nassau New Providence and . Freeport, on Grand Bahama
People: Nationality - Noun and adjective - Bahamian(s); Ethnic Groups - African 85%, European 12%, Asian and Hispanic 3%
Languages: English; some Creole amongst Haitian groups.
Education: Mandatory and free up to age 16. Enrolment for mandatory attendance 99.2%. Literacy rate 96.6%.
Religion(s): Baptist (32%) Anglican (20%), Roman Catholic (19%), Evangelical Protestants (12%), Methodists, Church of God (6%)
Currency: Bahamian Dollar (BSD), \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\$1BSD = \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\$1US(May 2007), 1.97 BSD to the British Pound (May 2007).
Major political parties: Free National Movement (FNM), Progressive Liberal Party (PLP), Bahamian Freedom Alliance (BFA), Coalition for Democratic Reform (CDR)
Government: Constitutional parliamentary democracy. Independence: July 10, 1973
Head of State: HM The Queen
Prime Minister: The Rt Hon Hubert Ingraham
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister: The Hon Brent Symonette
Governor-General: The Hon Arthur D Hanna
Minister of National Security: The Hon Tommy Turnquest
GEOGRAPHYThe Islands of The Bahamas stretch southeast off the Florida coast, the closest island to the United States being Bimini, about 50 miles off Florida. The other islands stretch across roughly 100,000 square miles of ocean, beginning at about 170 miles from Palm Beach, Florida and winding 750 miles to the southeast, 50 miles off Cuba. The islands are mostly flat, the highest point being Mount Alvernia on Cat Island, which is 206 feet above sea level. The climate is semitropical and the islands do not experience extremes of temperatures.
HISTORYIn 1492, Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Western Hemisphere in The Bahamas. Spanish slave traders later captured native Lucayan Indians to work in the gold mines in Hispaniola, and within 25 years, all Lucayans perished. In 1647, a group of English and Bermudan religious refugees, the Eleutheran Adventurers, founded the first permanent European settlement in the Bahamas and gave Eleu thera Island its name. Similar groups of settlers formed governments in the Bahamas until the islands became a British Crown Colony in 1717. The first Royal Governor, a former pirate named Woodes Rogers, brought law and order to the Bahamas in 1718, when he expelled the buccaneers who had used the islands as hideouts. During the American Civil War, the Bahamas prospered as a centre of Confederate blockade-running. After World War I, the islands served as a base for American rum-runners. During World War II, the Allies centred their flight training and anti-submarine operations for the Caribbean in the Bahamas. Since then, the Bahamas has developed into a major tourist and financial services centre. The Bahamas achieved self-government through a series of constitutional and political steps, attaining internal self-government in 1964 and full independence within the Commonwealth on July 10, 1973.
Eighty-five percent of the Bahamian population is of African heritage. About two-thirds of the population reside on New Providence (the location of Nassau). Many have ancestors who arrived in the Bahamas islands when they served as a staging area for the slave trade in the early 1800s. Others accompanied thousands of British loyalists who fled the American colonies during the Revolutionary War.
GOVERNMENTThe Bahamas has a parliamentary system of government in which the Governor General represents the titular head of state, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. The Honourable Arthur D Hanna has held the office of Governor- General since February 2006.
Elections were held on Wednesday 2 May 2007, when former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham led the opposition Free National Movement (FNM) to victory over the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) and their leader Prime Minister Perry Christie. The FNM won 23 seats as against 18 for PLP. In the last election (2002) the FNM had won just seven seats compared to the 29 seats for the PLP. More than 100 candidates contested the 41 single-member constituency seats and there was a turnout of over 80% of the 150,000 registered voters.
In 2003 the then Government appointed a bi-partisan Constitutional Commission with the mandate to provide a comprehensive review of the constitution and to consider the method of amending it or adopting a new one. The Commission presented its preliminary report to Prime Minister Christie in March 2006. It proposed that The Bahamas should become a democratic parliamentary republic and that a President be elected or appointed by the two houses of Parliament as Head of State of The Bahamas. The final report will be published after a period of public consultation.
ECONOMYBasic Economic FactsGDP: US \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\$ 5.15 billion (2005 est)
GDP per head: US \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\$18,900 (2005 est)
Annual growth: 3 % (2004 est)
Inflation: Consumer Prices - 1.2% (year ending September 2004)
Major industries: Tourism, banking, cement, oil transshipment, salt, rum, aragonite, pharmaceuticals and spiral-welded steel pipe
Major Trading Partners: Export partners - US 42.1%, Spain 10.3%, Poland 6.1%, Germany 6.1%, Switzerland 4.9%, Paraguay 4.8%, France 4.5%, Mexico 4.5% (2004)
Import partners: US 22.3%, South Korea 19%, Japan 8.2%, Brazil 8.2%, Italy 8.1%, Venezuela 6.8% (2004)
Agricultural products: Citrus, vegetables and poultry.
The Bahamas is a developing country, with a GDP per capita of US\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\$ 18,900 (2005 est.). The main economic activity is tourism, which generates approximately 60% of the country's GDP. Second comes Offshore Financial Services, contributing approximately 15% of GDP, followed by the Agriculture and Fisheries industries, which together account for 8% of GDP.
The country's economic activity increased in 2005 by around 3%, following continued recovery in US-led demand in the tourist industry (US nationals account for 80% of visitors to the Bahamas). Tourism receipts are expected to pick up in the coming years as a string of investment projects come on stream.
Financial services remain an important sector of the Bahamian economy. Manufacturing and agriculture together contribute approximately a tenth of GDP and show little growth, despite government incentives aimed at those sectors. Medium-term projections point to a gradual erosion in external competitiveness. The unemployment rate was around 10% in 2005.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSThe Bahamas' Relations with NeighboursThe Bahamas is a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, CARIFORUM (CARICOM plus the Dominican Republic and Cuba), the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), the Caribbean Export Development Agency (CEDA), and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO).
The Bahamas' Relations with the International CommunityThe Government of the Bahamas is involved in on-going discussions on economic co-operation and trade liberalisation involving the United States and Canada, which includes the proposed hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations. The Government is participating with 33 other countries to forge an FTAA. However, these talks have yet to reach agreement.
The Bahamas has applied for Membership of the Word Trade Organisation (WTO), where it currently enjoys Observer status, and has started negotiations on its accession.
|
|
