3.5m euros stimulus for small businesses

The Barbados-based Caribbean Export Development Agency plans to pump at least 3.5 million euros more to help medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs) in the region stay in business following the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their operations, a top regional official has announced.

Percival Marie, director-general of CARIFORUM, the grouping of CARICOM and the Dominican Republic, was addressing a webinar hosted by Caribbean Export titled COVID-19 Crisis Mitigating its Impact on MSMEs of CARIFORUM Countries, Identifying and Leveraging Opportunities.

The regional official warned that the small business sector’s contribution to Caribbean economies should not be undervalued and provision should be made by Governments to keep these enterprises going as economies are resuscitated following the pandemic’s impact.

“For the Caribbean… some 92 per cent of the formal business enterprises are MSMEs and 60 per cent of private-sector employment in the region is created by that sector.

“The contribution of the informal sector is not included in those figures, so you can see the relative importance of that sector if you were to add the contribution of the informal sector to those figures,” he told participants.

According to the high-ranking regional representative: “Even their ownership structure and the areas of operation, MSMEs in CARIFORUM contribute significantly to employment creation, reducing poverty and income inequality and have an important role to play in empowering women, youth and rural communities.

“Because of their contribution to GDP and their role in income generation the Caribbean MSME sector has an extremely important role to play in the medium and long-term development of CARIFORUM states.”

In this connection, Marie insisted that the region could not achieve sustainable and inclusive economic development without the contribution of these small and micro-businesses. Moreover, he emphasized that the resilience of CARIFORUM economies depended heavily on the resilience of MSMEs.

He explained that the COVID-19 pandemic continued to expose the vulnerability of the sector and a recent Caribbean Export survey identified the major areas impacted included cash flow, sales, operations, contracts and orders, staffing and significant supply chain disruption.

“Challenges in recovering from the pandemic will include recovering financially, dealing with the question of access to existing and new export markets, regaining customers lost during the shut-downs and adjusting to what will become the new normal,” he told participants in the webinar.

Explaining that not all was lost, Marie cited Caribbean Export’s plans to mobilise an addition 3.5 million euros in grant financing. He said the Caribbean’s only trade and investment promotion agency which was established in 1996, would also be seeking angel investors “to provide additional equity financing to ease the burden of some MSMEs”.

Also appearing in the discussion was Senator Lynette Holder, executive director of the Barbados Small Business Association. She described the pandemic as the worst crisis the region had faced in 100 years.

She said while Governments can seek to improve conditions for greater business facilitation, following the COVID-19 crisis, the state’s main role was providing stimulus to MSMEs to ensure their survival.