Fashion industry to get $2 million injection

Prime Minister Mia Mottley is convinced that Barbados is sitting on a gold mine in the form of the fashion industry and to this end, she said her administration will be making $2 million available to Export Barbados (BIDC) and the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) to push the industry in the coming months.
Additionally, Mottley said, the Government will fund the reintroduction of the Primary School Strings Programme – through which students are taught to play string instruments like the violin, viola and cello – for the next seven years.
Pointing out that the global fashion industry is a US$1 trillion one, the Prime Minister used Barbadian international star Rihanna as an example of someone capitalising on opportunities, saying that her journey “ought not to be unique”.
“The talent of the people in this country must be honed and must be given a platform to be exported. I want to be certain that Barbadians can be a part of this industry,” she declared, admitting to getting most of her clothes made in Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica.
Mottley, who was presenting her 2023 Budget in Parliament on Tuesday, said: “We are sitting on an untapped gold mine and we have to put our money where our mouth is.
“This Government will put $2 million out of the excess that we will have next week [from tax revenues] into the BIDC to work collaboratively with the National Cultural Foundation to push the fashion industry,” she said.
“We have a 12-page plan that has been prepared from the time when I was minister in economic affairs. We talk about building out factory space and buying the equipment and the computer aid technology to allow many of our people to come in and do micro leasing. Most of the people who have talent do not have money to go and buy machines on their own, but if we create a space then what we do is create opportunities for Bajans,” added Mottley.
In relation to the music programme in primary schools, the Prime Minister said: “This government will put our money where our mouth is with our primary school children and we will have a Strings project in 68 primary schools from St Lucy to St Philip, making sure that those kids in our primary schools for the next seven years will be exposed to string [instruments]”.
Recalling that she led a similar programme as minister of culture in 2001, Mottley said $600 000 will be provided for this project annually. However, she did not give a start date.
The Prime Minister also announced that the promised Queen’s Park Redevelopment Project should start soon.
Mottley, who said in April last year that the NCF would likely move to Queen’s Park from its current West Terrace location, disclosed that the Government had been putting money aside for the project.
“[It] will start under the management of the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc. and we expect to finish it fully by the end of 2024,” she said.
Noting that “the people of Barbados will give it its new name”, Mottley added that the Queen’s Park location “will be this country’s hub of creatives with facilities for production, rehearsal, vending and live and digital performances”.
“It will have a small amphitheatre so that people can stand in the same place as Marcus Mosiah Garvey and speak . . . . It must be the home of creativity and advocacy in this country and it must also provide accommodation for artists and residents so that there is a synergistic opportunity to determine what is possible in this Caribbean civilization, because when artists determine the possibilities governments can then execute what is probable and certain,” the Prime Minister said.
(MM)