On the surface, the dispute between Antigua’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne and Sandals Resorts International (SRI) appears to be a simple conflict between a host country and a Caribbean investor.

Browne has torn up the 2009 tax concession agreement signed between Sandals and a previous Antiguan Government, unilaterally declaring it illegal. These types of dispute emerge from time to time in various parts of the world.

Indeed, a there are commercial and other courts to which redress can be sought, and I would suggest that after exhausting all avenues, if this Antiguan issue cannot be resolved between the two parties, they should seek arbitration.

But the SRI-Antiguan dispute, unfortunately, goes well beyond a parochial host country-investor problem because the decision of one Government to prematurely end an agreement signed by a previous Government can have serious implications for the Caribbean region.

Investors looking somewhere to park their funds do not just look at individual countries. They look at the stability and reputation of the region on a whole. That is why foreign direct investment (FDI) is very shy about parking in the volatile Middle East.

If investors, using the Antiguan example, believe that governments in the Caribbean region are not to be trusted to honour their agreements, we could find that investments could dry up or even depart our shores. This is something we can scarcely afford.

Since 2008 when the international recession hit the Caribbean, FDIs have been at a trickle and are only now beginning to improve. Although Latin America and the Caribbean saw overall positive growth in FDI inflows in 2015, it was mostly due to Central American growth.

It is a fact that the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has lowered its growth projection for the economies of the Caribbean to an average of -0.6 per cent for 2016, pointing out that: “There is greater weakness in internal demand in the region’s countries with the decline in domestic investment accompanied by a deceleration of consumption.”

At the same time, ECLAC urged regional economies to stimulate investment and increase productivity in order to get on a path to long-term sustainable growth, which aids social conditions of the people’s of the region.

Any disappearance of investments will hit the region very hard and further exacerbate the difficult economic conditions being experienced from end of the Caribbean to the next.

Prime Minister Browne might not have been looking at the bigger picture when he took his very risky decision. He might well have been trying to get at the Opposition party which signed the Sandals agreement while it was in power in 2009.

But his colleagues who gather in Georgetown, Guyana, for their annual Caribbean Community (Caricom) heads of government summit from today could quietly point out the potential problem his decision could make for the region and assist him to find a face-saving way out.

Agreements involving governments must be sacrosanct and protecting the image of the region is the business of all of us.

Glendon Philip is an international investment consultant working in the Caribbean region.