Despite a notable increase in the number of businesses offering products and services online, an outspoken academic is expressing concern about the absence of new internet-driven industries arising from the Coronavirus pandemic.
Director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) Dr Don Marshall told Barbados TODAY that the increase in online commercial activity has been doing very little to revolutionize the economy and is merely benefiting an established business class that is heavily dependent on importation.
“As it is right now, we are involved in e-commerce, but at the wrong end of the spectrum. As it is right now, we are involved in e-commerce to facilitate greater imports and consumption, but we need to be producers of content to put on online platforms and we need to be using said online platforms and working with international payment systems to ensure that the purchasing of Barbadian and Caribbean products and services can expand and deepen,” Marshall told Barbados TODAY.
“That is when you can say that digitization works well for our region. But as it is right now, digitization modernizes and facilitates the interest of customers who wish to purchase quality, cheaper items, but at the same time it leaves us still with a ballooning need to diversify our economy, earn foreign exchange, borrow less and that kind of thing,” he added.
While noting that movements toward true economic enfranchisement would require entrepreneurs to take more risks, Dr Marshall also stressed that appropriate financing options would also need to be made available.
“Being in a digital world doesn’t push aside questions about existing inequalities. It doesn’t push the questions of poverty and trans-generational poverty aside; it doesn’t tackle the questions of socioeconomic inequalities and the proclivities of the leading economic class toward more import commercial interests instead of production-oriented activity. It doesn’t tackle these hard questions that will lead to the game changer that a digital economy can provide,” Dr Marshall pointed out.
“If we are living in this world where we are getting smarter, building smarter cities, using the technology to deliver advertising for our products, it would be fantastic if it was matched alongside developments that give rise to a class of entrepreneurs who are in the business of innovative enterprises like creating new solar technology, new alternative technology goods and aqua farming.
“If we are in an environment where those areas of university research that are worthy of patenting could be sponsored and commercialized, then you take advantage of the new digital tools to say to the rest of the world that we are open for business and here are the products and services that we offer,” the academic explained.
The SALISES Director also suggested that Government lead the way by looking beyond offering online payments and the development of digital identification cards.
“We speak of smart cities but we need to generate data that allow citizens to know when the next bus is coming, the times when sanitation trucks will be passing in your community and to improve the urban environments and general environments that would allow more efficient use and management of resources.
kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb
