Investors still keen on Barbados

There continues to be strong interest from potential private sector investors in the development of Bridgetown, says Minister in the Ministry of Economic affairs and Investment Marsha Caddle.

She told Today’s BUSINESS that in addition to government’s Bridgetown transformation project, Barbadians can still expect to see hundreds of millions of dollars in investment from the private sector in coming months.

This follows a major tourism investment conference held back in 2019, which was designed to encourage local and overseas investors to invest in several hotel and tourism-related projects along the Bay Street area to Holborn Circle, St Michael.

Ahead of that tourism investment conference, Prime Minister Mia Mottley did outline early plans for at least 12 new hotels, expansion of seven properties and a major conference and convention facility along the prime waterfront stretch of land, which includes Bridgetown.

Meanwhile, under Government’s urban renewal and transformation plan, a new Fairchild Street market is being built, and the Probyn Street fire station headquarters and the old NIS building were pulled down to accommodate redevelopment of the area and the creation of green spaces.

Giving a brief update on the planned investments coming out of the tourism investment forum held in early 2019, Caddle told Today’s BUSINESS there continued to be a number of enquiries from overseas investors.

“That still has momentum because we are still getting interest from people who have said ‘we are interested in developing this part or that part’.

 Remember we gave outlining planned approval for certain key sites and people are following up with us to be able to develop those,” she said, opting not to disclose who the potential investors were or where they were likely to come from.

She added: “We have two Pierhead private developments that are coming, that we have planning applications before us and are moving ahead.

So you are going to see more and more that Bridgetown is being developed by the private sector”.

Coming out of the 2019 tourism investment conference, then Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds had reported that there 18 likely opportunities that were showcased for potential investors to make “brand new so-called green field investment in Barbados”.

It is anticipated that private sector development work, which has been delayed over the past year, will begin along the Pierhead and Carlisle

House area.

Caddle said the planned investments were expected to create a number of jobs for locals during the construction phase “and then in the operations of those entities”.

Though unable to say exactly when highly anticipated investments were scheduled to start once approved by the Town and Country Planning Department, Caddle gave the assurance that Government would continue to create the right enabling environment for the investments to take place.

She was speaking recently on the sidelines of a tour of phase III of the $14 million Constitution River upgrade project, which forms part of a Government’s urban renewal and Bridgetown transformation project.