Govt ‘seeking to free Barbados from unchanged trade pattern’

Barbados has been trading in the same “top ten exports” to the same markets for too long, exposing the country to economic vulnerability, Foreign Trade Minister Sandra Husbands declared on Thursday.

She signalled Barbados has begun a ‘realignment’ to a new trade destiny in which it sells more of its goods and services to other developing countries rather than depend on markets in the rich industrialised North.

“That is the only way we’re going to overcome the vulnerability of our economy, which has a narrow set of goods that it trades in [and] it has not changed much in 15 years,” said Husbands in a speech to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados’ (ICAB) virtual annual conference under the theme, Purpose Passion Possibilities.

Speaking on the topic Possibilities of East-West Trade, the minister said that the term East-West Trade has transitioned to South-South Trade, in which developing countries seek to form partnerships with other countries of the South on a bilateral, regional, intraregional or interregional basis.

She said Bridgetown has shifted its foreign policy to create a realignment to a South-South destiny.  According to her, this realignment does not mean that Barbados will be ignoring the north but will be diversifying and adding more countries to its trade portfolio.

Husbands said: “One of the things that is very important to us as part of our national initiative is that we need to pursue trade with non-traditional partners.

“Our top 10 exports are still generally the same, and we are seeking to trade these in a narrow set of markets and that is a recipe for extreme vulnerability. So our government has been looking at building new relationships, and we’ve been seeking to intensify our engagement on the East-West, South-South corridor so that we’re able to build a new set of trading relationships that will help us.”

Noting that it was important to understand that all trade takes place within a political context, she added that businesses need to understand how the political sphere impacts Barbados’ engagement in trade.

She added: “While government will seek to create and increase avenues for trade among its CARICOM partners, Latin America and more recently the African continent, we can’t do it alone…. CARICOM has to work together, enterprises have to work together, not to compete, but to cooperate so that we build strength that we can maximise these opportunities; and the only way we can do that is if we can build trust. Trust is essential to be able to give people the confidence to release their financial and human capital.”

The foreign trade minister also advised participants that Barbadian businesses need to find ways to diversify in order to grow, which means looking outside of Barbados.

She told the ICAB conference that finance officers can play a role in helping their businesses seize possibilities in trade.

Husbands said: “We need to look at export and we need to look at investment in other countries that we can build enterprises of scale that will allow us to do more in terms of trade, and therefore our chief accounting officers, our financial directors, our top accounting people at the top of our organisations have to be a part of the leadership.

“And this speaks to your purpose in this moment to be able to work with your enterprise to broaden its horizon and to plot a path, develop a strategy and execute it to help your enterprise to transition to an export model or to an investment model that will allow your enterprise to grow and collectively allow Barbados to grow.”

She also outlined to the accountants three key areas for a working relationship between the private sector and government: in-depth talks on the opportunities available; working together to formulate a national strategy; investing; training and improving standards.

She appealed to members of ICAB to start looking for innovative ways to help their businesses achieve the South-South cooperation goal. (BT/BGIS)