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| Minister of International Business, Donville Inniss. (FP) |
Local manufacturers are facing too many obstacles and the situation is causing a serious dent in the way business is being conducted in this country.
And, Business Minister, Donville Inniss, has cast blame on the ???attitude’ exhibited toward persons who utilise our services.
The Minister who was speaking this morning at the Inaugural Symposium on Innovation and Manufacturing, at the Savannah Beach Hotel, Hastings, Christ Church said that "we need to recognise that time is money and when we have constant delays, for example, with respect to the Bridgetown Port and delays across certain sectors of our services area, these things are a source of concern that do pass on very enormous costs to businesses in Barbados."
Before an audience that included local manufacturers from across the public and private sectors, the Minister urged persons "to commit to making Barbados a place where we really do business in a very efficient and timely manner."
While noting that the issue of Intellectual Property was also of concern as it affected those who have the most creative minds in our society, Minister Inniss stressed that it was a topic that needed to be worked assiduously on, especially in areas of recognising, registering and facilitating Intellectual Property.
He said: "Moving from an idea within your cranium matter on to the table where you can actually produce products and services designed by Barbadians to which you can earn income from that registered Intellectual Property is important."
He then asked participants to query if today’s educational system was producing the kinds of creative thinkers and entrepreneurs that Barbados’ society needed.
"We must be able to think and function outside of the box…Of course, the utmost importance to us is the whole theme of buying local and this is nothing new as this has been going on from the time Adam was a lad.?? And, we need to ask ourselves where have we gone wrong and what can we do, where and how can we do it.?? We need to have a culture in this society that says that we must indeed support and buy local wherever possible," he charged.??
Against this background, Chief Executive Officer at the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation, Dr. Leroy McClean told participants that "we need to be more aggressive in terms of marketing our products."
He outlined that too often persons were resistant to change and this was something that needed to be examined in order to turn the sector around and place it back onto a path of growth.
"Growing up we were taught to be good employees, but in terms of tapping into our creativity and exploring entrepreneurship, that is an area that we now have to reverse our thinking," he claimed.??