THE CONSISTENCY of international business in providing foreign exchange to Barbados is unrivalled by any other sector, including tourism, an industry executive has said.
The offshore financial sector contributed about $1 billion annually in hard currency to the economy, said Henderson Holmes, executive director of Barbados International Business Association (BIBA), at a recent news conference to launch International Business Week, which starts Sunday.
“It is unmatched by any other sector,” he said. “Unlike other sectors which require new activity in order to generate foreign exchange, the mere presence of these entities in Barbados – they do not earn anything in Barbados but they have to pay all the costs of what they do in Barbados – it is foreign exchange continuously coming in.”
Quoting from recent statistics, BIBA president Andrew Alleyne said new international companies were being formed here every year, even though there was a slowdown in the rate of growth because of what was happening in the world economy.
Please read the full story in today’s Daily Nation, or in the eNATION edition.
