Broadway, perhaps the world’s best known theatre district, has a guiding principle: the show must go on.
Invest Barbados has seemingly embraced that bit of operating philosophy that has worked well for the entertainment industry and came to Manhattan to spread the word about Barbados as an important business and financial centre in the Caribbean and Latin America. This was done at a business executive’s hotel, Grand Hyatt, about six blocks from Broadway and long list of theatres.
The state enterprise in Bridgetown whose current responsibility is to market the Caribbean country as a thriving location for international financial and information services sponsored a business symposium that attracted several business executives and professionals from New York and Toronto who are interested in doing business offshore.
Senator Darcy Boyce, who as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office is responsible for energy, immigration, telecommunications and Invest Barbados, delivered the feature address and was emphatic that the island-nation wasn’t “a tax haven” that allowed foreign individuals and corporations to avoid paying taxes due to their parents country but was a low tax jurisdiction whose cornerstone was a network of bilateral and investment treaties and agreements with at least a score of foreign countries, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, China, Cuba and Botswana.
What set Barbados apart from tax havens, he said, was that while havens emphasized bank secrecy and provided an escape route for the non-payment of taxes, all income earned in Barbados was taxable, albeit at a very low rate.
The picture he painted was that of a country with a sound banking system; advanced telecommunications infrastructure; a “world-class” business culture; a “fair” tax system; a good track record for transparency; an exemplary educational system; not to mention extensive experience in the operations of international financial and information services companies totalling more than 4 000.
Boyce, a former Deputy Governor of Barbados’ Central Bank, who once served as the chief executive officer of Barbados Tourism Investment Inc., said the country had acted to eliminate many of the immigration concerns of foreign investors, living and working in Barbados by making the system even more predictable. Retirement visas, for instance, which were in existence for years would be expanded to include high network individuals, meaning wealthy foreigners.
Bruce Zagaris, a Washington-based tax law expert, who has been advising successive Barbados governments for decades, said that in addition to its range of business opportunities, Barbados was a centre for “transnational philanthropy,” whose foundation could be traced to the various double-taxation agreements and bilateral investment treaties.
Barbados has 24 double taxation treaties which are in force with 33 countries.
Liza Harridan Sodha, an attorney who holds a Masters in international trade and finance law from the University of Wolverhampton and Leeds in England, said the Barbados-China double taxation treaty had opened up exciting opportunities for foreign companies seeking to expand their business activities in China, one of the world’s largest economies.
Cyralene Benskin-Murray, acting deputy chief executive officer and general counsel of the Financial Services Commission, described the watchdog agency as regulator of the financial services sector which was also engaged in facilitating business. Barbados’ two key regulators were the Central Bank and the commission, she pointed out.
The country’s Ambassador in Washington, John Beale; the country’s Ambassador to the United Nations Joseph Goddard; the Consul-General to New York, Lennox Price; and Earl Phillips, a Barbadian who is secretary-treasurer of the Transport Workers Union, which represents more than 40 000 employees of the Metropolitans Transportation Administration were among the scores of people in the audience.