Hikes hurt

The price hikes in water, petrol, and foreign exchange transactions are seriously affecting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), says the president of the Small Business Association (SBA) Wayne Poonka Willock.

Speaking during a State of the Sector Conference yesterday as part of initiatives to mark SBA Week, Willock said MSMEs continue to face severe challenges.

While he acknowledged Government had given MSMEs ease on corporation tax and had finally paid VAT returns, he said hikes in other sectors were crippling MSMEs.

“As a sector, we welcomed the reduction in corporation taxes to five per cent, refunds of long-overdue VAT payments, the launch of trust loans and efforts to improve business facilitation through the digitization of Government services.

“Our members, however, are being severely impacted by increased commercial water rates, the levy on petrol and the continued tax on foreign exchange transactions, the latter we hope will be revisited before the VAT on online transactions is introduced,” Willock said.

He maintained that MSME’s had the potential to spur significant economic growth.

However, he pointed out that incentives must be offered to help facilitate that growth.

“It is against this background that the Barbadian economy must be incentivized to grow as MSMEs represent a significant potential to facilitate this growth,” the president noted.

Willock revealed that the SBA had launched several initiatives aimed at helping the transformation process.

He said this included but was not limited to training opportunities and helping members establish new markets where their businesses could continue to grow.

“In our secretariat, we have started a number of capacity building interventions to improve firm competitiveness and this we will further strengthen.

“We will continue our training for the skills for the new economy and further implement our business development actions to help firms maintain markets and grow new ones. We will also focus more critically on leveraging cluster development not only domestically, but maximizing on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy,” Willock pointed out.

randybennett@barbadostoday.bb