THE CURRENT Mexico-CARICOM Summit will help to give Barbados a voice to defend itself against charges of being a “tax haven” at next month’s G-20 conference in Mexico.
This was the word from Prime Minister Freundel Stuart on the first day of closed-door summit talks at Hilton Barbados yesterday. Stuart told the SATURDAY SUN that in light of such strong accusations, including the most recent by then French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who last November listed Barbados among such havens and called for them to be “excluded from the international community”, Barbados needed a voice amid the G-20 countries that include France.
“Barbados has been having to battle for its life in the international business sector in terms of being labelled a tax haven and being accused from time to time of various derelictions or breaches, none of which is corroborated by fact . . . . Certainly at the G-20 level where you have countries like France, the last country to lump Barbados with nations that were not satisfying Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) standards . . . , we want to have a voice in there,” Stuart said, adding that Canada would also be helping Barbados in that regard.
The international business sector is Barbados’ second highest foreign exchange earner, accounting for 60 per cent of the country’s corporate tax take.
Read the full story in today’s SATURDAY SUN.
