International buyers can create opportunities for local manufacturers

Sonja Trotman, CEO of the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC), believes that the initiative to bring buyers to Barbados around BMEX can create opportunities for manufacturers to export.

BMEX started yesterday under the theme ‘Back to Basics’. Trotman was speaking on Thursday at the BIDC Buyers’ Programme Showcase at Bagnall’s Point Gallery, Pelican Village where she explained, “Each year the BIDC supports BMEX; we sponsor participants in the exhibition. For the last two years, we decided to go on a bigger scale and bring in buyers to see what Barbados companies have to offer. Bringing the buyers to Barbados at the time of BMEX is strategic because they get to see several manufacturers in one place and then we can use the opportunity of them being here to take them to other companies that may not be at BMEX.”

“BIDC has fully sponsored the visit of the 12 buyers and we facilitate their introductions to manufacturers and service companies. We have buyers from Panama and Cuba, which are two relatively new markets we have been targeting for a while and we also have the traditional markets of CARICOM. We also have representatives from the UK and USA and they are all buyers that work with the BIDC,” the CEO noted.

Speaking to The Barbados Advocate, in terms of the recent budget, she stated, “If any impact on manufacturers, we will continue to provide assistance wherever possible and wherever necessary... With reference to the recent Budget, we have not had discussions with manufacturers as yet, but we do imagine that there will be some areas that will be challenging and they would have concerns, but we will continue to work with them to assist in business development.” (NB)