MINISTER OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS Donville Inniss says that in the coming months he will be stepping up efforts to maintain existing international businesses while attracting new ones.
Noting that the international business sector here remained solid despite persisting global economic challenges, Inniss said some offshore companies based here had begun to expand.
“While they may not be hiring the large numbers here, they are certainly getting into new markets and they are increasing their revenues,” he said.
“A part of my work over the next couple of months will be to get my officers and other agencies within the public sector to work a lot closer with those businesses that are already here because once you are here and you are settled you are likely to expand from Barbados.
“They are likely to go out there and preach the good news about Barbados and less likely to pack up and move,” he said.
Adding that there were other jurisdictions that offered lower tax rates than Barbados, Inniss contended that they did not offer the same quality of life and that was one the main reasons many of the international businesses were in no hurry to leave.
He told reporters that there were weekly enquiries from offshore companies wanting to operate here.
“Every week we do get new entities requesting to be licensed under the various pieces of legislations at the ministries, or the Central Bank or Financial Services Commission. So we remain pretty buoyant. It is quite evident that as the [economic] challenges continue there is undoubtedly more pressure being applied every month by stakeholders primarily in developed countries,” said Inniss.
He was speaking to members of the media following a FINPYME family business workshop at the Cave Hill School of Business recently.
The topic for the workshop was Governance For Competitiveness And The Continuity Of Family-Owned SMEs In Barbados. (MM)
