Barbados got good news yesterday.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) commended the country for meeting all of its targets to date, some by wide margins, while the European Union (EU) removed it from its controversial blacklist of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.
This doubly delightful news was welcomed by a buoyant Prime Minister Mia Mottley. However, she cautioned that in terms of the economy “we have a few more road signs to pass, but as long as the people of Barbados stay the course, I assure you that we shall be successful in being able to overcome what really was a very turbulent and difficult legacy”.
On Barbados’ removal from the EU blacklist, Mottley said “it doesn’t mean that the battle is over”.
She said the blacklist “means that insurance companies that could have left us will not now do so because they will not be prevented from doing business in Europe as a result of the blacklist”. However, Mottley said challenges would remain “because we live in a world, quite frankly, that persons will want to continue to extract every competitive advantage that they can, and competitive advantage also comes from the perspective of the imposition of rules and bureaucracy that will act as a non-tariff barrier in real terms to keep some countries uncompetitive”.
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