Loans help give back life to business

Over 2 700 loans valued at over $12 million were provided by the Trust Loan Fund as of last month.

This disclosure came from Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce Dwight Sutherland as he spoke on the implementation of the programme, which is devised for Barbadian entrepreneurs seeking to engage in legitimate entrepreneurial business activity.

“These businesses include artisans, barbers, coconut vendors, florists, gardeners, hairdressers, juice makers, well diggers and many, many others. As of October, 2019 our Government has provided 2 700 loans valued at $12.3 million under its Trust Loan Programme.

“As we ‘give back life to business and to create intergenerational wealth’, a key component to their success will be the ability to implement successful quality management processes into their businesses and to be able to measure customer feedback and customer satisfaction. I am confident that through the efforts gathered here and through the work of the Barbados National Standards Institute (BNSI), we will continue to engage with these entrepreneurs in the attempt to build a quality culture in Barbadian businesses and deliver training and guidance in order to improve their management systems and hence improve their chances of success,” he said.

At the time, the minister was addressing the opening ceremony of the International Standardisation Organisation Technical Committee 176’s Meeting at the Hilton Barbados.

Acknowledging the importance of the BNSI in improving local producers’ competitiveness, he outlined one example where a producer was able to increase their production efficiency by 12 per cent, decrease water usage by over 25 per cent, explode their recycling efforts from nothing to 98 per cent recycling upon the implementation of the ISO 9001 quality management standard.

“One can therefore imagine the economic rewards the producer received from these quality improvements. These improvements result in a multiplier effect with benefits not only to the producer which becomes more profitable, but also to the employees and the state,” he added. (JMB)