Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, Dwight Sutherland, today shared how Barbados is performing with respect to the ease of doing business.
He was addressing the Barbados Manfacturers’ Association’s Manufacturing Forum at the Accra Beach Hotel and Resort, Rockley, Christ Church.
Acknowledging that his ministry had introduced initiatives, since June 2018, to ensure the development and empowerment of Barbados’ business community, Minister Sutherland said this was done through “promoting and regulating commerce and consumerism, while guaranteeing the provision of a fair and regulated marketplace by providing the requisite legal and policy environment for businesses to operate”.
He noted that to facilitate the manufacturing sector and in keeping with government’s mandate, his ministry had aggressively embarked on raising the profile and addressing the impediments to doing business in Barbados.
Minister Sutherland further pointed out that to gauge its own performance, Barbados, like other countries, had utilized The Ease of Doing Business Report, produced by the World Bank. He disclosed that since its creation in 2002, it had become an important tool for many companies and investors to determine where to invest and analyzes comprehensive quantitative data on countries, as well as provides measurable benchmarks in several areas.
Providing a snapshot of how Barbados was stacking up, the Commerce Minister said: “The recently published Doing Business, 2019 Report ranked Barbados 129th out of 190 countries, and we are behind Jamaica who is ranked 75th, St. Lucia who is ranked 93rd, and Trinidad and Tobago who is ranked 105th. But coming closer, we also have been ranked 23rd out of 32 economies in Latin American and the Caribbean region, and we have been ranked 9th out of 15 Caribbean countries, and we were doing better before and you know that.
“But with regards to the ease of doing business scores, Barbados’ score is below the average for the Caribbean and Latin America. The average for the Caribbean and Latin America is 58.97 points, and we are at 56.78 points, so we are just below the average. New Zealand, who is first, has 87 points. I’m however, pleased to note that in resolving insolvency, Barbados is ranked 34th out of 190 economies worldwide. So, we are doing good in this area.”