Consolidation the way forward, says Inniss
Sat, 04/02/2016 - 12:44am
A Cabinet Minister is suggesting that local manufacturers could cut costs by working together.
The suggestion has come from Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development, Donville Inniss, as he spoke specifically about the movement of goods throughout the region. The Minister, noting the oftentimes high transportation associated with exporting, acknowledged that exporting products could be a “big headache”, especially for those companies that are not shipping large quantities abroad. Inniss made the comments while speaking to the media recently as he put forward the idea of manufacturers, in particular smaller ones, pooling their products in one shipment.
“It is not easy, it is not cheap to move a 40-foot container from Bridgetown to Kingstown in St. Vincent, which is by air just a few minutes away… Certainly we will continue to try to find ways of first containing the costs of shipping within the region and then driving that costs down,” the Industry and Commerce Minister said.
He said, “Including being bold enough to work with manufacturers and exporters in Barbados to do consolidation of what we are producing here. Why send one 20-foot container of one particular product to St. Vincent, if we can work together and send maybe a 40-foot container with three or four different products?”
The Minister said this is the type of collaboration that his Ministry is trying to promote in the sector to address some of the high cost challenges facing the various stakeholders. His comments came as he pointed out that access to financing is also an issue for the manufacturing sector as well as small and medium sized businesses in this country, as there is limited access to low cost financing.
“People may bash the commercial banks, but the reality about it is that they are in a profit mode as well and that is why I commend the Enhanced Credit Guarantee Scheme, put on by the Central Bank and funded by the IDB. That is certainly, once appropriately deployed, going to help manufacturers and enterprises in Barbados at least access some financing at a lower cost, which of course would lead to them making investments in additional plant equipment and staff going forward,” he said. (JRT)