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Sixteen companies from the manufacturing and services sectors have completed the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation’s (BIDC) four-month Export-Readiness Programme (ERP) and will receive their Certificates of Completion tomorrow, Wednesday, September 5, at a graduation ceremony at Bagnall’s Point Gallery, Pelican Village.

These companies can now boast of their readiness to trade beyond the shores of Barbados, having been imparted with new knowledge, techniques and tools necessary to reap the long-term rewards of exporting during the ERP training, which ran from April 24 to August 21.

Minister of International Business and Industry, Ronald Toppin, will deliver opening remarks at the ceremony, which gets under way at 2:00 p.m.

Trade Policy and Technical Advisor to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Less Developed Countries (LDCs), Office of Trade Negotiations, Joel Richards, will deliver the feature address.

According to BIDC’s Business Development Officer, Humphrey Broome, the ERP “continues to be refined and shaped to provide pertinent knowledge to would-be exporters and is geared towards engendering a culture of outward-looking companies that can compete globally even within their own market”.

The ERP was launched in 2011 as part of the BIDC’s bid to enable a thriving and sustainable export sector. Its overall thrust, which has been ongoing in collaboration with Caribbean Institute of Leadership and Coaching, is to grow Barbadian nominal exports receipts over time, by increasing the number of companies that are actually exporting, thereby increasing Barbados’ potential to earn much-needed foreign exchange.

This year, BIDC continued its partnership with, among other specialists, the Office of Trade Negotiations, to deliver training on the trade environment in which Barbadian exporters interface. The segment covered CARICOM trade agreements and the regional framework for Barbados’ trade, with special emphasis on how these facilities could be leveraged.

Participants will later have the unique opportunity to put into practice the knowledge gained over the past 16 weeks when they embark on a Trade Mission to St. Lucia, scheduled for October 10 to 13.

joy-ann.gill@barbados.gov.bb

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