24 July 2015 - Business View Caribbean
pand and build sustainable businesses. To keep the
sector moving, the key ingredient is exposure, and this
is facilitated through BMEX and our Buy Bajan cam-
paign, which showcases the best of what we have to
offer, bringing national, regional and international at-
tention to manufacturing in Barbados, and the latter
raises awareness of locally manufactured products in
Barbados.
“The average view of manufacturing tends to be very
limited and at time erroneous. When some think of
manufacturing they still think of dim and dusty opera-
tions. Some of our manufacturers run fully automated
state-of-the-art facilities. We are constantly increasing
our standards and moving toward manufacturing ex-
cellence. We are now 50 years strong and are getting
stronger ever year. Manufacturing is here to stay.
“Undoubtedly, there are a number of challenges which
the sector faces. The largest to our mind is competi-
tiveness. While the quality and craftsmanship of local
manufacturing is undeniably first class, we are forced
to compete against foreign goods, be it right here at
home or abroad where the playing field is not level.
We must compete with markets whose labor costs are
much lower, who have cheaper access to energy and
who benefit from greater economies of scale than we
do.
“Also key for us is training. We want to make sure
manufacturers have the right tools and access to the
necessary resources. That is the drive behind our col-
laboration with the Cave Hill School of Business and
other partners on various initiatives such as the Entre-
preneurial Survival Series.”
“Our manufacturers are also recognizing the need to
be more creative, to innovate and adopt performance
standards,” Nicholls said. “There are several manufac-
turers in this country who are ISO certified, who have
outstanding brands competing on the regional and in-
ternational stage. But unfortunately so many people
