Barbados explores free zone possibilities in Dubai

The Barbados Government is looking to establish a Gold Exchange.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley made the announcement Tuesday morning when she and a Barbados delegation met with key leaders of the Dubai Free Zone in Abu Dhabi.

“I hope that by this breaking of the ice, by the bringing of this delegation here and by the opportunity for us to deepen conversations, will result in us being able to settle on one or two areas. We feel, for example, that we can learn from you on the establishment of a Gold Exchange,” Prime Minister Mottley disclosed.

“And why? Our partners in the Caribbean, in Guyana, our partners in Africa, Ghana…we are uniquely positioned with just under 2 million people every year coming in to our shores to be able to visit us. That becomes a potential market for the people of Guyana and Ghana who don’t have access to that market to sell their gold,” she said.

The government head also said her government believes it can replicate this initiative in a number of other areas, particularly in a world which is likely to move more and more to regional blocs and near-shoring.

Mottley told the delegates that the world was trending in that direction due to a lack of focus on multilateralism and secured globalisation.

“There are some unique opportunities, but they require nimblenes and they require speed, if we are to go forward. So I hope that this sets the context. No amount of speeches is going to make a difference. It is now up to conversations and individual initiatives, and I therefore want to bless the whole proceedings and to say to you simply to let us see how best we can work in a win-win situation for all of us, because we want the best and success for our people,” Mottley said.

She told the key free zone stakeholders in Abu Dhabi that Barbados was currently reviewing draft legislation for the creation of a similar zone.

“And we recognise as well, that in the same way that you have been that trading hub here, we have also been blessed with the geographical attributes to allow us to be a logistics hub as well,” the Prime Minister noted.

She said there are opportunities to benefit from the space between South America and North America, Central America, Africa and Europe, and to work with other partners such as Abu Dhabi officials to have global access.

She pointed out that Barbados was willing to be bold and daring in its pursuit of progress, and chosing Dubai was evidence of that.

“That is why we deliberately chose to come here and to see how we can work better together. There is no capacity to catch up as we discussed yesterday. We have to transform and we have to leap-frog and therefore we wanted to be able to see what are the opportunities for partnership with DMCC (with ourselves, to make sure that some of the people who are here and others who aren’t here to work together to be able to engage in global development,” Mottley added.

DMCC refers to the Government of Dubai’s initiative which provides the physical, market and financial infrastructure required to set up the commodities market place in that country.

Barbados’ Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Gabriel Abed also said Bridgetown was looking at establishing multi-family office collaboration.

“We are looking at collaboration in the area of free zones, and we are looking at even quality structuring. How can Barbados become the centre of excellence of the world. How can Barbados become the centre of excellence along the lines of tax credits? The list of things that we can do together is quite large,” Ambassador Abed stated.

“There is also the possibility of building new ports and hubs between Barbados, the Caribbean, Latin America, West Africa, all the way to the Middle East. These are some of the areas that haven’t been explored in the last 100 years when we were trading between West Africa and the Caribbean. It is not the type of trade we ever want to see again,” Ambassador Abed said in reference to the Atlantic slave trade.

He also informed the Abu Dhabi business people that Barbados is also looking at developing islands off its shores. “Of course, United Arab Emirates obviously knows how to build those islands,” he added.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb