Bill Clinton headlined an investors' conference Thursday in Haiti's capital to promote economic growth and job creation in the impoverished Caribbean nation.
Clinton, the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, is also planning to visit the countryside Friday as part of a two-day visit.
Two hundred foreign investors were gathering for the conference, sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank to discuss opportunities in Haiti's garment assembly, agriculture and energy industries.
"Haiti is open for business," Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis told attendees at an upscale hotel. "And as you know, time is of the essence."
Haiti was once home to productive farms and garment factories where low-wage workers sewed clothes for export, but years of turmoil have destroyed its environment and economy.
Clinton was tasked by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this spring with helping restore the economy, and thus halt upheaval, in a country where 80 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day.
The U.N. has had five peacekeeping missions here since 1993, including a Brazil-led force of 9,000 soldiers and police that has been in place since a violent revolt in 2004.
But debate over raising the country's minimum wage in garment factories _ currently less than $2 a day _ has sparked street protests and clashes with police and peacekeepers in recent months.
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