Minister urges SMEs to embrace AI and digital trade

Minister of Energy and Business Development, Senator Lisa Cummins, has urged small businesses to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and digital trade as vital tools for growth and global competitiveness.

She addressed attendees at the media launch of the Small Business Association’s (SBA) annual week of activities on Friday evening at Flow’s Customer Service Experience Centre, Windsor Lodge.

Speaking on the theme Navigating Business in the Age of AI and Digital Trade, Senator Lisa Cummins said both are rapidly transforming the way business is conducted.

She highlighted longstanding challenges faced by the small business sector, including high operating costs, limited access to finance, restricted market reach, and vulnerability to external shocks.

The minister credited the SBA with conceptualising the theme as a roadmap for the future and announced new collaborations with the National Cultural Foundation, FundAccess, Trust Loans and other stakeholders to create digital trade models.

Highlighting the global potential, she noted that with the right systems in place, small businesses can bypass traditional barriers and enter the global economy.

“We need to build in digital guardrails; we need to write the rules of digital trade for Barbados, including championing a CARICOM digital trade chapter which allows us to harmonise e-signatures, e-invoicing, consumer protection, and data flows.”

Cummins encouraged small businesses to use AI as a supportive tool rather than a substitute and to focus on regional growth as a stepping stone to global expansion.

“For the Caribbean, with the right digital rails, modern trade rules and skills, Caribbean SMEs can expand exports, energise our creative industries, tell our stories, drive regional integration, build businesses and create generational wealth that we pass on to those who come behind us.”

She also warned, “Without action, SMEs will continue to face compliance costs that they cannot meet and connectivity gaps that they cannot bridge and payment frictions that they cannot overcome.”

Cummins declared, “If we work together, Barbados and the Caribbean will not simply participate in the space that I have described; we have the ability to lead it.”

Senior Manager B2B, Flow Barbados, Romel Sargeant.

Senior Manager B2B at Flow Barbados, Romel Sargeant, said this year’s theme resonates, as it highlights the immediate opportunities available, noting that AI and digital trade are no longer future concepts but present realities.

“Connectivity is no longer optional; it is the lifeblood for a modern business. And we are determined to help entrepreneurs not only survive but thrive.”

Also delivering remarks were representatives of platinum sponsors Curtis Knight, CEO of Capita Financial Services; Lora Toppin, Manager of Underwriting at Guardian General Insurance; and Mark Harding, Manager of Corporate and Commercial Credit responsible for SMEs at Republic Bank.

The week of activities runs September 21–27 and includes a church service and a webinar. The XI Leo Leacock Memorial Lecture and an awards ceremony will both be hosted at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

In addition, a youth forum is also on the programme, with events culminating in participation in the We Gatherin’ Road Show-St James. (STT)