Barbados has what it takes to exploit “several emerging trends” and grow its international business and financial services sector.
Donald Oliver, a former Canadian senator who is involved in several businesses, thinks the island should pursue these “vast opportunities” this year.
“Barbados has made great progress in new ICT infrastructure, and has a competitive advantage over others. It should deepen and broaden itself as an expert in international legal advice, and give immediate consideration to enlarging its training facilities for investment advisors skilled in big data analytics,” he said in an opinion piece published in the latest edition of the International Business and Financial Services Newsletter published in the Central Bank of Barbados.
“This will help make Barbados a prime destination for digitally advanced asset management. Barbados could become a global centre of excellence for intellectual property law, where advanced research could be conducted on the taxation of ‘patent boxes’, and, perhaps, even the incubator for housing the research arms of global institutions. The way forward for Barbados is bright, exciting and can be transformative.”
Oliver, who was one of the several experts in Barbados last September to participate in an international conference hosted by Invest Barbados, said in the current fast moving digital age Barbados was “a unique and quietly successful international financial centre”.
But he said Barbados needed to be wary of international efforts that could negatively affect the advancement of such domiciles, including various Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) initiatives.
“Barbados must therefore focus on an extension of proven strengths and successes as a buttress against any change in standards and rules of doing business. Barbados wants to remain an innovative IFC leader in the era of the digital economy.
