![](https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Dwight-Sutherland-tours-supermarkets.jpg)
(FP)
The outreach efforts to be made this month by Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, Dwight Sutherland, are all about ensuring effective communication with vendors, businessmen and consumers, who help to build out commerce on the island.
Minister Sutherland emphasized this yesterday as he spoke with representatives of the media, following his first tour of Massy Stores, SuperCentre Warrens.
Summing up the outreach efforts that will touch supermarket chains, petrol stations and vendors, he said: “I believe as a new government we have come from a situation whereby people felt depressed and deprived of the opportunity to communicate with those policy setters, and indeed we talk about Ministers and those persons who work within government [for instance] Permanent Secretaries. And, I see it fit not to stand on ceremony as I run the Ministry of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, but to reach out to the key persons who indeed will help build out this economy. We recognize that growth in this country must come from the bottom up and
it is my mandate, which is indeed the Prime Minister’s wish and indeed this government’s mandate, not to sit in your office and ask people to come and sit with you.
“We want to reach out to the key sectors. In my Ministry, the retail sector is indeed critical in driving commerce in this country and I saw it fit and members of my Ministry thought it was a very good idea…. We come and we share with you what we would like to see and I think they have welcomed us warmly. That augurs well for business; developing and fostering good business relationships is indeed half of getting this job done and that’s my vision for this Ministry – to communicate and continue to communicate effectively. So, these stores are part of my mission and vison as it relates to effective communication.”