Private sector urged to play part to drive business back to Bridgetown

A prominent businessman believes the private sector has a big role to play in revitalising commercial activity in Bridgetown.

While welcoming the comments by Member of Parliament for The City Corey Lane about several major projects planned to help return activity to the capital, Managing Director at Abed and Company Ltd, Eddy Abed told Barbados TODAY members of the private sector must also play their part to drive interest back to the area.

“I know the Government is putting the necessary factors in place that will assist businesses to get ready and to make sure that The City is, in fact, revitalised, but the private sector also needs to take the initiative,” he said.

“The difficult situation here is that you are competing for scarce investment dollars. Does an investor put the money outside of The City where they know immediately they can see a return, or do they put it into The City and know that they have to wait three to five years? This is what we are competing against. And when you have large projects like this coming aboard, it should pave the wicket, it should roll the wicket [for] others to come.”

Addressing concerns about the bleak state of Bridgetown on Tuesday, Lane said that within the next few years, major projects would be coming on stream to drive economic activity and traffic back through The City again, including the Hyatt project, the Pierhead project, and the transformation of the Treasury Building into residential housing.

Abed, the former president of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCCI), stressed that boosting commercial activity willnot be an easy task and will require a holistic approach by all stakeholders to attract businesses and other ventures to the area.

He said The City needs to be revitalised.

“I say that with a huge pause because we do have the Hyatt coming, and we do have the Pierhead project and these are huge capital projects that will bring not only, in the short term, workers to The City but in the longer term you will have people living in The City, working in the city, being entertained in The City, and all of us are looking forward to this,” he added. (SB)