This country intends to continue to initial treaties with other like-minded jurisdictions so as to enhance its competitiveness in the international financial services sector.
That is the promise made last evening by Deputy Prime Minister, Mia Amor Mottley, who is also Minister of Economic Affairs and Development.
She was at the time speaking at the official launch of Tricor Caribbean Limited, a member of the Bank of East Asia Group, a leading professional provider of integrated business services.
Noting that the international financial services sector is the second most important sector in the economy, contributing some “65 percent to its corporate tax take”, Ms. Mottley said there had been a considerable increase in the number of treaties Barbados had signed over the last three years.
“It is our intention to significantly expand upon that treaty network because in recognition of the fact that we are not a tax haven but a low tax jurisdiction, we need to have a treaty network to buttress our competitiveness in terms of our desire to make Barbados …by 2025, a globally recognised domicile for aspects of the international financial services sector,” she affirmed.
Unlike tourism, she noted, “there is no limiting or carrying capacity with which we have to contend in relation to the financial services sector”.
Minister Mottley also revealed that last Friday, Barbados signed a double taxation agreement and bilateral investment treaty with the Seychelles and received a draft text for a double taxation agreement with India which will be negotiated shortly.
Barbados should also be signing treaties with Mexico and Ghana soon.