In Jamaica, a new technology company is holding interviews for its first 1,500 of an eventual 5,000 jobs, with most of the applicants expected to come from an internationally backed school in the island's west.

At the other end of the Caribbean, one of Barbados' biggest conglomerates has created a joint venture with a UK company to operate several call centres in the Caribbean.

Faced with uncertain markets for their traditional commodity exports, and with increasing pressure on their financial services sectors, small Caribbean countries are looking hopefully to e-business and related internet services to support their narrow economies.

The prospects for significantly beneficial use of information technology by the region are good, according to a recent report by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac).

Although the Caribbean has made progress in utilising a range of internet services, it is still far from optimising the potential for e-business, says Eclac.

The region has a natural advantage in informatics because of language and telecommunications infrastructure, the report says. "The challenge for the region will continue to be how to use these and other advantages to guarantee economic success."

Physical size, a lack of natural resources, and distance from business centres have been suggested as reasons for the slow pace of the region's development, but information technology has made these irrelevant, says the report. The region's governments and more progressive entrepreneurs have started to make use of this.

"Some governments have attempted to promote access to computers and the internet at affordable rates by granting duty free entry to computer equipment and negotiating successfully with telecommunications monopolies to lower rates."

Governments are address ing the issue of telecommunications costs. In the English speaking Caribbean, several countries are negotiating to dismantle the monopoly of Cable & Wireless, the UK telecommunications provider.

The administrations say they want to introduce competition to bring costs down and make the countries more attractive to e-business. The company says it is not averse to a deregulated market, but wants proper regulation of the sector, and adequate arrangements for interconnection to its infrastructure.

Some jurisdictions are creating the legal infrastructure to take advantage of opportunities for e-commerce. The Bahamas and the Cayman Islands are preparing legislation - similar to that enacted in Bermuda, a British territory in the North Atlantic - to encourage e-business.

There have to be legislative safeguards against the abuse of e-business opportunities by money launderers and other international crimes, says a Bahamian government official.

The region expects most of its e-business to come from North America and Europe, and increasingly from Asia and South America, as these markets develop.

Another hurdle which the Caribbean will have to clear in its efforts to take advantage of e-business opportunities is an increasing threat to low-tax and no-tax jurisdictions which attract business because of a tax advantage.

Industrialised countries are demanding that these countries change their taxation laws. In some cases, the changes might be radical enough as to cause investors in e-business, attracted by tax benefits, to move to other locations.

This has not deterred governments from making significant investments in training for e-business. The Dominican Republic's cyberpark is being supported by a technology training institution (ITLA) which will train mainly Dominicans in a range of information technology-related disciplines.

ITLA has received commitments of support from companies such as Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Siemens, say government officials.

In Jamaica, the government has guaranteed jobs for all graduates of the Caribbean Institution of Technology, which provides training for computer programmers. The institute is a project of Indusa, a software company in Atlanta, US, the Jamaican government and Furman University of South Carolina, US. The graduates are expected to be employed by investors the government is seeking for informatics ventures.

Region has time-zone advantages

The Barbadian government is expanding opportunities for specialised training for software engineers in the hope of capturing an increasing volume of offshore information technology business, mainly from North America.

"The Caribbean has a time and location advantage in relation to both North America and Europe," says a Barbadian official.

"With a high level of education and with labour rates lower than those in North America, the region can provide a range of services for companies in English, and in Spanish in the case of the Dominican Republic."

European companies contracting operations to Caribbean locations can start their work day with the added benefit of back-office operations completed overnight in the islands, says the official.

The region's determination to benefit from information technology and e-business opportunities is graphically illustrated by the change which has overtaken Hipolito Mejia, the new president of the Dominican Republic.

While in opposition, he was dismissively critical of his predecessor's plan to create the cyberpark and considered it a wasteful indulgence. But since taking office two months ago, Mr Mejia has become one of the more enthusiastic members of the park's board of directors.