Barbados needs new home-grown business sector

Barbados needs a new indigenous business sector.

This is the belief of Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth, Stephen Lashley, who delivered the feature address at the opening ceremony of the National Youth Consultation yesterday at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (LESC).

“I always say that Barbados needs a new indigenous business sector. The only way that we are going to be able to solve some of our economic challenges – the major ones – is for a revitalisation of the indigenous business sector in Barbados.

“We have to create more indigenous businesses that have a regional and global reach. We can’t do that without the brilliance of you the young people of Barbados. We have got to have dynamic thinkers, persons who are willing to risk investment or to get investment to propel their development in Barbados and beyond,” Lashley stated.
This is especially important considering that this country is a small island developing state with limited natural resources, and therefore, the importance of human resources takes on even greater significance.

“You have a role in our economy and you have a role in how Barbados fits into the global arena. Barbados is indeed a very small, open economy. We have not over the years – not only over the last ten years only – we have not over the years done enough to restructure our economy. Many of the challenges that we have [include] challenges of productivity, challenges of making Barbados work, being business savvy. Barbados has vastly got to become a country where things happen quicker and there is a much more efficient utilisation of our time and resources,” he told those present.

He added, “Communities have now become the bedrock of creativity. Entrepreneurial activity must now be led by young people. We need to have more entrepreneurs who are young people, but who are not [just] satisfied at opening up a shop and doing nails and having a few customers from your gap.

“Why can’t you be a global nail technician? Why can’t your market be the Caribbean? Why don’t you think of using mobile technology to get into other markets? There is no longer a restriction on markets as we have had in the past. Global technology and digital platforms have created virtual markets’ entry and therefore, tonight, you can talk to your counterparts in Germany, in Japan, in Russia, in United States.”