Unleashing the spirit of the nation
In order to strengthen Barbados' competitiveness globally and raise awareness of what the country has to offer as a place to do business, a new entity named the Barbados International Business Promotion Corporation (BIBPC) came into existence in October 2006.
Annalee C Babb, CEO of Barbados International Business Promotion Corporation |
Babb explains, "The BIBPC is responsible for all of Barbados' investment promotion activities except in the area of tourism. We are going to take over the overseas offices from the existing Barbados Investment and Development Corporation and be responsible for exploring foreign investment opportunities for Barbados in various key sectors."
While the BIBPC will continue to market Barbados as a preferred financial center, Babb believes there are significant unexplored opportunities for the country to generate foreign exchanges and create new jobs in other high value-added knowledge-based services as well.
"Barbados has achieved a measure of success in some traditional areas such as tourism, and our off-shore sector has grown pretty nicely, but what we are going to focus on is helping diversify the economy, looking at very high-value-added areas. Our responsibility is also to unleash what we call our indigenous services sectors, such as information and communication technologies (ICTs), telecoms, arts, music, culture, education, healthcare, which we have developed to a pretty effective level nationally but have not looked at ways in which we can export those to earn foreign exchanges," Babb says.
According to Babb, the fact that Barbados in 2006 was ranked number four in the hemisphere in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitive Index bears testimony to Barbados' transition from an efficiency economy to an innovation economy.
What is more, a recently reported increase of 30 percent in the country's export to other Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) countries is seen by the BIBPC as a sign that Barbadian companies are starting to seize the opportunities offered by the CARICOM Single Market to expand regionally and, eventually, internationally.
"Someone said to me about two or three weeks ago that this is Barbados' time, and I thought about it, and I said, 'Yes, it is our time!' I believe we have all the resources and key people in key positions to grab the opportunity and run with it and really make it Barbados' time," Babb says.
Signs at the north point of Barbados, reflecting on Barbados' place in the world |
One of BIBPC's mandates is to develop a brand for Barbados that leverages the island's positive reputation abroad while repositioning the country more clearly as a place to do business.
"When you travel overseas and talk about Barbados and its tourism products, people think, 'Ah, that's what Barbados is!' There is a value in that reputation, which is very clear to people. We have taken it for granted. We haven't named it. And we haven't created a package around it that is consistent. And so what we are looking at is: What do we as a people represent in the world? We believe that we can make it in a global economy on our own merit and as a people with a distinct culture and distinct products and services that are unique to whom we are. The BIBPC is going to take the lead in making this happen, and we are very excited about it, helping craft the brand that is Barbados, to represent that in the world," Babb says.
In order to strengthen Barbados' presence in international markets of particular interest, offices in several locations around the world are "on the cards."
In the Far East, the BIBPC is looking at suitable countries in which to establish a presence that will give Barbados a conduit into the People's Republic of China, with whom Barbados already has a double taxation treaty, making the island an attractive place for the Chinese to do business.
"Certainly, investors from China and elsewhere are very much welcome in Barbados, and certainly we would love to have tourists visit from that region," Babb says.
"Barbados is a wonderful place to live, to work and to invest. We have a wonderful country with beautiful beaches, flora and fauna, and people are just fantastic, but we also are strengthening our framework for business in ways that will make the transition to high-end, high-tech services in a business-friendly environment fairly seamless and very, very enjoyable."
(Shanghai Start 02/01/2007 page3)
