Agency coming to help businesses get money to export

The Government of Barbados is working toward establishing an agency that will give manufacturing businesses easier access to financing to expand their operations.

Minister of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology Davidson Ishmael made the disclosure on Thursday, saying Government was working on a host of partnerships and policies aimed at bolstering the sector.

Among them is a new export credit agency.

“Our hope is that financing will no longer be a barrier to businesses when seeking to expand into regional and international markets,” Ishmael said during the awards and dinner ceremony at Sandals Royal for this year’s Barbados Manufacturers’ Association’s Trade & Innovation Summit Expo.

“The introduction of the Export Credit Agency or the Export Bank of Barbados will allow for businesses to access financing for purchase orders. This will be done through the provision of monetary support that these businesses will need to be able to fulfil large external orders readily and on time.”

The Ministry, in partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC), and the Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (CCREEE), will also soon collaborate on a Global Environment Facility (GEF) project aimed at strengthening the private sector’s capacity in sustainable technology areas, as well as supporting the investment environment to help push the island’s clean energy goals. 

“The project will seek to establish a public-private platform for regular policy dialogue in an effort to promote coherent demand and supply-oriented crop-sectoral policy regulation and incentives. It will also seek to establish a physical, sustainable energy and climate cluster hub which provides businesses with communication and networking space, start-up support, co-working and mingle space, incubation services, common marketing and branding opportunities, as well capacity building opportunities,” Ishmael said.

“It will also go further to strengthen the cluster members by establishing a funding window which provides grants and concessional loans for the commercialisation of innovative business ideas and industrial upgrading.”

The project will cater to upcoming entrepreneurs, investors, and other financiers, all of whom will be part of the digital revolution the Government is aiming for.

Ishmael stressed that it was paramount that his Ministry, as well as the Barbados Manufacturers’ Association and other stakeholders, cooperate openly and honestly on all levels in order to help drive the local industry into better, financially lucrative territories.

“With such a strategic trifold partnership being in effect, it is expected that we will collectively move the needle forward in manufacturing, by creating a vibrant network of manufacturers here in Barbados,” Minister Ishmael said. (SB)