December 2016 | Business View Caribbean

42 43 MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY - BARBADOS AT A GLANCE THE MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS, COMMERCE, AND SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT WHAT: A Ministry of the Government of Barbados WHERE: St. Michael, Barbados WEBSITE: www.commerce.gov.bb crease the island’s employment rate. “Our support of the manufacturing sector leads to job creation,” says Inniss. “The more we market Barbados as a place for foreign companies to do business, the more jobs we create.We have offices in the UK, Canada, and the US to promote Barbados.We also use social media and participate in conferences and missions around the world. And at home, we have regular engagement with the private sector, in particular, so that they’re aware of what we are doing.We also work closely with the private sector to help shape the policies so that it’s not a case of government superimposing its ideas on others but working in a collaborative manner.” Another way that the Ministry helps the nation’s economy is by investing in local businesses, through grants and loans, as well as various tax incentives. “We focus on reducing the im- port rates of tax so that people who wish to import items in the manufacturing sector can find it less expensive to do business,” Inniss says.“And we’ve invested in many businesses here to re-tool so that they could increase their production.We’ve exposed some of our manufacturers to the latest in technology.And we’re weeks away from rolling out a new suite of incentives and policy guidelines for the small, micro, and medium enterprise sectors in Barbados to make themmore competitive.” Inniss says that one of the Ministry’s goals is to increase the country’s export of goods by ten percent this year.“And we are on target to achieve that,”he asserts. “We’ve been able to take some of our manufacturers into new, emerging markets, such as Cuba and Guyana, and some islands in the Caribbean.” Inniss says that moving forward, Barbados confronts some major challenges, both exogenous and endogenous.“On the exogenous side, we have uncertainty in the