HISTORY AND CUSTOM have wrapped us up so closely with developments in the United Kingdom that even after our Independence cut some of the legal ties of dependency some 50 years ago, we cannot ignore the momentous decision of the British people to leave the European Union.
For a start, we get the greater share of our tourists from that market. In addition, the common language we speak reminds us daily of the bonds which are so integral to our economic well-being that a substantial share of our foreign exchange earnings, a veritable plank of our standard of living, is supported by the spend generated by British tourists.
We expect that the relevant authorities would have been engaged in making sure that they are informed in a serious way about the impact of the Brexit decision to leave the European Union on the financial ability of British tourists to travel to these parts.
As John Donne said so many years ago, “No man is an island”. His insightful comments were complemented many years later by Marshall McLuhan, who clearly saw that communication would make, and has made, the world a global village.
The speed of new media now brings decisions made elsewhere that might be adverse to us right into our living rooms.
It seems that no sooner have we managed to deal with the problem of the fuel surcharge for long-haul passenger flights as a threat to the tourism industry than another problem arises. We cannot rest on our laurels if we are to maintain and improve the numbers of our visitors.
The same constancy of attention to detail and hard work is necessary for the growth of our international business sector. Here we take the lion’s share of our sector from Canada but the ever-present challenges to that sector arise largely from decisions made in Europe, mainly from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The success of small island states like Barbados has attracted the attention of regulatory authorities and other pressure groups, and during the past week our Minister of Industry spoke on Sagicor’s Early Business from London on the “moving of the goalposts” by some of those organisations.
A more recent threat has been the fallout from the leaking of the “Panama Papers” Although our Government has made it clear, both at home and abroad, that this island is not a tax haven, recent articles in the Canadian Press have sought to label Barbados as a jurisdiction that allows Canadian companies to evade taxation in Canada.
This misleading notion can bring much pressure to bear on decision-makers and we endorse the view that these false nostrums must be dealt with and corrected at an early moment before they become embedded in the mind and cause harm to our vital interests in developing an “above-the-board, legitimate” tax haven based fundamentally on the best practice principles of double taxation treaties and exchange of information.
Events in the past fortnight reinforce the truth that the battle for our economic survival is not only to be fought on our domestic front, in which we seek to control the deficit and create space for the private sector to develop and grow the economy.
We also have to mount consistent and timely responses to the ever-present challenges to the two largest foreign exchange earners of our economy.
We owe it to the country and generations yet unborn.