No informed person in Barbados needs to be told about the importance of the offshore international business sector to our economy.
The recent celebration of International Business Week has underscored the point that the sector provides jobs, stimulates the rental market for homes at the higher level, and brings us vital foreign exchange in taxes paid on profits made from operations here.
The history of the sector’s development here suggests that the Government, local professionals and overseas industry professionals take Barbados seriously as a jurisdiction with the legislative framework that might satisfy needs of international business.
There are many who will recall the halcyon days when the Intel Corporation operated a high-tech manufacturing facility here, and later established an offshore bank and captive insurance company when we passed the enabling legislation.
We also enjoyed a substantial reputation as a location for foreign sales corporations until the World Trade Corporation ruled against the United States and outlawed this type of company on the basis that it unfairly subsidized exports.
We also answered the OECD challenge in 2001 and we have continued to grow from strength to strength with increasing numbers of companies establishing a physical presence here, doing real-time business, as opposed to the brass plate operations in some other places.
But the sector is highly competitive, and is subject to a fast-moving environment in which other jurisdictions and some regulatory authorities are a constant threat to the enjoyment of the niche as a treaty-based jurisdiction which we have carved out.
Yet we have always been careful to operate a clean above-the-board industry in which our adherence to disclosure and anti-money laundering regulation have been a hallmark of our operations.
There can be no doubt that the Government is paying attention to external developments which may adversely affect the industry, and we endorse the continuing extension of our double taxation treaty network and its commitment to tax exchange information which has become a critical part of the modern international taxation and financial landscape.
We have established a solid foundation on which we can further build the sector, so that it makes an even greater contribution to the national weal, but speed of reaction and maximum efficiency are required if we are to remain competitive, for the industry is ultrasensitive to domestic inefficiency or tardy responses to external factors.Â
Any industry that provides $240 million or 63.2 per cent of all corporate tax revenues is one that requires the closest proactive attention of both the Government and the private sector. We cannot as a nation afford to rest on our laurels.
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