Given the continuing challenges facing the economy, every effort has to be made to maximize the inflow of foreign currency earnings and the creation of jobs while minimizing foreign exchange outflows and reducing expenditure.
It is in many respects a very tall order, given the small, open nature of the economy and the traditional dependence on tourism and tourism-related services as our main sources of earnings.
This is more so since agriculture cannot provide a significant inflow of foreign exchange as our much vaunted sugar crop of many past years has now been fetching a lower than production price. In addition, we have effectively lost the battle with beet sugar and our entry into the preferential European markets is now a thing of the past.
Against this background the recent speech by Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business, Mr Donville Inniss, is a timely reminder that we must try to export whatever we can find acceptable to those who would import. Moreover, it means that we cannot take lightly those countries which bar our goods from entry into their markets while enjoying almost unimpeded entry into our island.
The interesting thing is that although the minister did not name any countries, already some local exporters were complaining about the attitude of some of our sister islands. What makes the pill the more bitter to swallow is that we have opened our markets, in keeping with our regional treaty obligations, to their goods.
Mr Inniss was speaking at the launch of the 2013 BMEX Exhibition and chose the occasion to remind the audience that retailers and consumers alike should check their labels and buy Bajan. This was a blunt rejoinder to those several complaints of non-reciprocal treatment by our neighbours, but the minister’s message also has other domestic benefits as he himself pointed out: “In buying Bajan, purchasers were helping to lower the cost of living, creating and saving jobs, strengthening the economy and, most importantly, getting home-grown goodness.”
There are those who might think the minister has been too blunt and is not to be taken literally, but we beg to differ. We may have to fight fire with fire and in those cases where our goods are denied entry and where we cannot have these matters resolved amicably, then the purchasing power of Barbadians must be applied first to the Barbadian product.
We are, of course, well aware of our treaty obligations, and while we may honour them and allow goods in, there is nothing the least wrong with making sure that home drums beat first. In this context we are particularly pleased that the minister drew attention to manufacturing, because not only have we lost regional market share, but in many respects local manufacturers have also lost local market share.
Some of us may not share his optimism that opportunities exist for Barbados to recreate and recapture local, regional and international markets lost, but there is no doubt that he is right to encourage local manufacturers to regard themselves as capable of doing much better than they have done of late; and to look beyond the domestic and the regional markets to make their mark for self and for country.
