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Barbadian Businesses Need to Invest Outside of Barbados

Chris De Caires, Chairman of the Private Sector Agency and World Cup Barbados Inc., during his address at a luncheon hosted by BCCI urged local businesses to actively seek out investment opportunities beyond Barbados.

"We have a history of being conservative and waiting to see what happens. We need to become more aggressive in terms of looking for business opportunities; certainly you can see a number of foreign entities that have successfully taken advantage of our markets. We need to be much more efficient at what we do," noted De Caires.

De Caires urged local business to focus more on offshore investment opportunities. He highlighted a number of local companies with substantial offshore operations, such as Goddard's Enterprises, which operates in 20 territories throughout the Caribbean and South America, the Interamericana Trading Corporation (ITC) which operates in 40 countries throughout the Caribbean, South America and Europe, and Automotive Art which operates in 18 territories.

"Sagicor is also a very good example, so you can see that it is happening, but we need more of it. From the tourism side it would be nice to see a local brand operating across the Caribbean and taking advantage of what is a very lucrative industry."

De Caires pointed out that Barbados in not a low cost producer such as China and in order to maintain local manufacturing jobs it is critical to find and exploit market niches.

"The expectation is that our existing manufacturing will probably decline into the future. If we want to maintain manufacturing jobs we need to find new business in that sector. The challenge is to find niches that we can be successfully in because the cost of production in Barbados is high and certainly to compare us to China as a competitor, there is very little we can do except to identify and get into some niche market where we can be successful."

De Caires also expressed the view that some of the more established local businesses should partner with some of the younger and less-experienced entrepreneurs, to give them the stability and the backbone infrastructure to seize opportunities in areas such as music and culture more effectively.

Barbadian Farm Workers To Canada Urged To Obey The Law

Barbadians who break the rules of the Canadian Farm Labour Program should be aware of the consequences.

Minister of Labour Rawle Eastmond, speaking to workers scheduled for the 2005 program, said negative behavior such as the use of illegal drugs, excessive alcohol and irresponsible sexual behavior were giving Barbados a bad name.

He said the work of liaison officers in seeking employment opportunities for Barbadians overseas was being frustrated from both the supply and demand sides.

He said the National Employment Bureau has trouble finding people with the right attitude, while on the demand side, employers were rejecting Barbadians for their poor work ethic.

"There continues to be a lack of commitment to the terms and conditions of the employment contract and general lack of respect for supervisors. In addition, there is evidence of poor interpersonal relations, which in some cases resulted in physical confrontation that ended up before Canadian courts..," Eastmond said at Manor Lodge on Feb 2nd, 2005.

"The ministry continues to receive negative reports of these activities. Let me remind you that these negative behaviors are not only impacting on the Canadian Farm Labour Program, but are contributing to spoiling the image of Barbadian workers generally."

In outlining some of the policy decisions taken by farmers and the Canadian Department of Labour at the annual review meeting in Jamaica, he said there would be a no-smoking policy in the bunkhouses. He advised that 428 workers were in the program in 2004 compared with 427 in the prior year.