Business
Barbados Private Sector Association Chairman: Business Confidence Soars Amid Business Facilitation Concerns and Supply Chain Challenges
Barbados Private Sector Association chairman Trisha Tannis notes rising business confidence post-COVID-19. Concerns remain over slow business reforms and international supply chain challenges. Membership includes various key industry associations.
6 min read
Originally published by nationnews.com (opens in new tab)
Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) chairman Trisha Tannis believes business confidence in Barbados is at its highest since the COVID-19 pandemic.
She reports, however, that the private sector continues to be concerned about the “relatively slow pace of the business facilitation reforms”.
Tannis also flagged new international supply chain concerns, sharing in an interview that “we do have notifications coming down the pipeline now to expect higher than normal freight rates again”.
“I think we certainly have returned to a sense of confidence, more so than we did maybe since the COVID-19 pandemic,” she said.
“What is needed now, though, is that we translate policy imperatives into the tangible action or mechanics that the private sector in the investing class, both local and overseas, can all put our hands on and say, ‘Okay, fine, this is how this works, this is how we take advantage of it, these are the rules, this is the mechanism, this is the agency and so on.”
The BPSA’s membership is comprised of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Barbados Small Business Association, BIBA, the Association for Global Business, Barbados Manufacturers’ Association, Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association, Barbados Bankers’ Association, Barbados Employers’ Confederation, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados, Barbados Coalition of Service Industries, and the Barbados Agricultural Society.
Tannis said that in the absence of any empirical data like a business confidence survey, there were “certainly a lot more interest and investment opportunities that the business community thinks are quite interesting and we can wrap our heads around”.
This was particularly in the context of the Budgetary Proposals presented in March by the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment Mia Amor Mottley, which the BPSA chairman called “a private sector stimulus type approach that the Prime Minister has brought”.
“Obviously, policy pronouncements and business facilitation are two different things and clarity, in terms of how some of the incentives will work is another thing,” Tannis said.
“We have recently asked, for instance, the Barbados Revenue Commissioner, in one of her frequent updates and engagements with the private sector, for the policy guidelines, and essentially how some of these incentives are going to work.”
“So that there is clarity as to how one can go about investing in these particular areas of interest to the government, and continue to try to stimulate some much needed activity, particularly in the diversification type modus that was presented in the Budget,” she explained.
