Page 28 - AHATA

A14 LOCAL
Thursday 15 November 2018

Let’s talk about the Orange Economy

Maastricht – No country survives without a thriving economy. Aruba ticipation of women compared to The CCI value chain
has been developing for quite some time and has explored numerous more traditional industries. Now to The most explicit way of portraying
options for diversification. In the past columns, I have indicated the be able to visualize the economic the CCI economic overview is to
importance of expanding the economic horizon of the island. Con- impact of a CCI towards the Aru- indicate the value chain surround-
sidering the negative developments of the oil refinery in San Nicolas, ban economy is to measure it. The ing the CCI. The CCI value chain
the vulnerable developments of the small-medium enterprises, we most common way to measure an consists out of 4 layers. These four
have been solely depending and relying on the growth of the tourism industry’s contribution (any type of layers include the creators on the
sector for decades since our independence. Today we will discuss industry) to the national economy top level, the primary investors on
the first part of possible economic impact of introducing a CCI here is to measure its value added, in- the second level, secondary inves-
in Aruba. cluding its share of labor and capi- tors and facilitators on the third lev-
tal. The summation of the value el, and lastly, the consumer at the
added of all industries is equal to lower level.
How so an economic impact? the gross domestic product (GDP),
In the past, many professionals would have considered it a bit too the standard measure of the size Thinking back at the definition
extreme to merge culture and the economy with each other. Culture of national economies. However, of the CCI in one of the first col-
being flexible, creative and multi-dimensional can also be related to generally the value added by in- umns, we can conclude that the
economic developments of a community. According to UNESCO, dividual CCI is not available from CCI is very broad, extensive and
culture has been a productive sector and is playing an increasingly government sources. This lack of very much diversified across many
critical role in national economies all over the world. Cultural activi- official data makes it difficult to niche markets. For the first layer,
ties and industries are becoming drivers for growth, enabling the di- estimate the creative economy’s some examples for the creators in
versification of national economies, generating income and creating contribution to world output. Dur- this scheme are composers, mu-
employment in developed, developing and emerging economies. ing my research, this was also the sicians, poets, performing artists,
The “Orange Economy” is a relatively new phenomena that express- case. I was unable to find out software engineers, painters, archi-
es the Cultural and Creative Economy, even though the CCI has al- based of the current information at tects, designers, cultural workers
ready been in development for years. The color orange is representa- the government what exactly the or writers. This can be any profes-
tive of creativity and cultural expression in many global societies. economic impact of a CCI would sional that creates something out
be. So, this means, we should con- of their own imagination, craft or
Further along, CCIs provide the opportunity for entrepreneurship and duct more research as a whole. specialty.
a diversified employment. Besides this, CCIs tend to favor the par- Continued on Page 15