Innovation needs to be placed higher in Barbados, says former PM
Former Prime Minister of Barbados believes that Barbados could be on its way to what he terms an ‘Economic Cul-de-sac’.
He was speaking at the Innovate Conference 2017 at Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre facilated by the Barbados Investment & Development Corporation (BIDC) in an address entitled, ‘Smart Can Be Small’. According to him, “Apart from a pronounced emphasis on the investment and development of the human capital, Barbados has not placed a heavy premium on innovation as a driver of its national development. I say to you that a developmental model based on protectionism, trade preferences, unique tax benefits and economic sectors which do not make the fullest use of our human capital will lead Barbados into an economic cul-de-sac. The consequence is that the country needs to urgently move towards making innovation, technology and entrepreneurship principal drivers of its economic and social activity.”
The Former Prime Minister explained, “… Because of the special circumstances arising from small societies, they typically find it difficult to evolve and sustain highly diversified economic structures, they therefore tend to operate in narrow economic niches. The critical danger they face in doing so is to find themselves in a situation in which the environment within which development take place changes rapidly but they are slow or they fail to innovate and adapt thus falling in a developmental trap ... Barbados is in danger of being caught in such a developmental trap, historically its growth and development has been based on its reliance on a number of enablers and economic drivers, among these had been access to the markets of its principal trading partners and special preferential terms, it has also relied heavily on unique tax benefits with Canada.
In addition a network of tax treaties has been called upon to hold and secure a special niche in the global economy, it has also historically relied on high protectionist barriers to support and sustain the operation of its indigenous enterprises. As regards to socio-economic development it is drawn in part from the Nordic model featuring a plethora of social entitlements paid for by relatively high tax rates without evolving the kind of liberalized and technological dynamic business culture that has generated do much of the income and wealth of the Nordic countries.”
Arthur pointed out, “Barbados’ future development will take place in a global society where technological revolution unlike what we have seen before, fundamentally altering how economies function, the nature of work, how people live and communicate, it has bene termed the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Other countries including small countries faced with the prospect of having to function in a new global society have embarked on programmes to make the creation and successful incorporation of smart cities one of the most important and major responses to coping with the challenges ensuing from the fourth industrial revolution. Barbados will fail if it does not embark on a similar endeavor, the central challenge therefore facing the Barbadian society is that it too has to call on such as new technological dynamism to drive its development in order to replace and to address the balances in the old order of things.
“The need for Barbados to move to a higher stage of technological sophistication lies in the fact that its traditional drivers and enablers of economic development and social transformation have been eroded in value overtime by adverse developments and now operate has fully depreciated assets ...” (NB)