The cost of setting up a business legally in Barbados criminalises entrepreneurship.
The charge was made by economist Professor Avinash Persaud during the recently concluded Barbados National Entrepreneurship Summit at Hilton Barbados.
He said there was nothing “inherently un-entrepreneurial” about Barbadians.
“Do not shackle your mind with that idea. I see entrepreneurs every day, every night in Barbados. We have entrepreneurs but we don’t unleash [them]. We trap [them]. We criminalise those entrepreneurs,” Persaud said.
He noted that while a lot more could be done “to open the minds of our kids and in terms of exposure and knowledge and information”, the key is to decriminalise entrepreneurship.
Persaud called for size-appropriate regulation since legislation that governed a one-man operation should not be the same as for a business employing 1 000 people.
“The cost of registering your company, of setting up a firm . . . these things have to be size-sensible,” he said.
“Most people talk about finance as a major constraint. I’m not so convinced.
“Your average entrepreneur in a developed country finances themselves with their credit card, with their second job, with their third job . . .,” Persaud said.
He said one of the things we need to work on in the Caribbean, particularly in Barbados, is the notion of secured lending.
“A lot of people own things they can use as collateral in a bank but it’s not registered anywhere,” he said, noting that the ownership of much of our land was uncertain.
“You can’t go to a bank and borrow against it,” Persaud said. (NB)
