Barbados must continue to make legislative and regulatory improvements if it wants to continue attracting local and foreign investment.
Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman said this was the reality facing the country as it competed against other jurisdictions for business.
He was speaking in the House of Assembly yesterday during debate on the Insurance (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which was later passed into law.
It was the first piece of legislation considered by the Chamber soon after the new Member of Parliament for St James North took his seat on the Government benches following his victory in the May 21 by-election in that constituency.
During his 15-minute contribution, Blackman dismissed Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne’s criticism of Government’s debt management and lauded the Mia Amor Mottley administration’s management of the economy over the last seven years.
At the outset, however, he also made it clear that Barbados had to continue efforts to make itself a more attractive domicile for investors.
He said this was important “when you look at where this jurisdiction continues to go, particularly in the context of investment and ensuring that the jurisdiction continues to be fit for purpose, for both local and foreign investors”.
“And ensuring that the world understands that Barbados is serious about business, whilst equally at the same time ensuring that we can ensure that the resilience framework necessary for business and doing business, and in particular in the insurance market, is critical. We therefore can see why this amendment is necessary,” he said.
The reality
Blackman said the reality was that “Barbados as a jurisdiction continues to compete amongst many other jurisdictions of a similar class and therefore the amendment, to my mind, takes into account the changing realities of the insurance sector”.
“There is no secret, of course, that Barbados, like many other small island states, continues to be on the front line of the climate crisis, and therefore the risks that come with that continue to increase, and we have to be in a position that when new modes of insurance come to the fore, if new products constantly coming online, that we have to offer that level of protection for our beneficiaries,” the minister said.
This was in addition to having “a regulatory framework that is robust enough that still puts the jurisdiction in a place that will continue to attract the best and innovative products that can come on stream, and therefore it allows for greater certainty in the market”.
“It allows for . . . both domestic investors [and] foreign investors, who also consider the changing landscape when they’re making their decisions in their boardrooms across the Caribbean and world, to see Barbados as that jurisdiction that allows for certainty, that allows for innovation and that allows for them to be able to do business with the country,” Blackman said.
“Particularly as the Government builds out its capacity in attracting new modes of business, new products, and in particular within the confines of the international financial services market.” (SC)
