Barbadians carried out more debit and credit card transactions last year than they did in 2016. In addition, the 2017 Financial Stability Report showed that residents performed more withdrawals from Automated Teller Machines (ATM) during the year under review. “During 2017, the value of domestic payments continued to trend upward representing 620 per cent of […]
Category: Business
Prime Minister Mia Mottley has announced that there will be changes coming to the five-decades-old Town and Country Planning Act that could impact on how land development is done in Barbados. While not providing details, Mottley told the annual general meeting of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre […]
Economist Avinash Persaud is warning commercial banks that it is no longer business as usual and that they need to change the way they operate in order to better withstand external shocks. Addressing the ninth annual Domestic Financial Institutions Conference at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre on Thursday, he pointed to a range of new […]
Despite ongoing challenging economic conditions, the local financial system grew by approximately 2.8 per cent to reach $25.6 billion last year. However, despite a moderate expansion in asset base – largely attributed to commercial banks, credit unions and insurance companies – assets as a percentage of gross domestic product fell to 271 per cent from […]
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mia Mottley says the current system of managing concessions under the Tourism Development Act (TDA) is anything but fair. In fact, she told a gathering of industry stakeholders here on Wednesday that what it had essentially done was to create three classes of hoteliers in the country. “Those like […]
Tourism and industrial businesses could receive an ease after all from the massive rise in their water bills occasioned by Government’s Garbage and Sewage Contribution (GSC) levy announced on Monday by Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mia Mottley as part of her economic recovery plan. While not promising to reverse the decision, Mottley today […]
The country’s bread and butter tourism sector could be slapped with yet another tax as the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration presses ahead with its economic recovery programme. The cruise sector, which escaped additional taxes in the first phase of the three-phase Economic Recovery and Transformation Plan announced by Prime Minister and Minister of Finance […]
The Barbados Association of Retired Persons (BARP) has high praise for Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mia Mottley’s June 11 Budget in which old age pensions were hiked from $155 to $225 per week, amounting to $18 million more per year. Apart from the increase of the non-contributory old age pensions, Mottley also announced […]
A day after Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mia Mottley presented a $1.2 billion austerity Budget in Parliament, former independent candidate Leroy McClean has put forward his own economic ‘SOS’. The national redevelopment plan, which was prepared back in January, is aimed at saving Barbados from a currency devaluation, as well as massive retrenchment […]
International accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) is warning that additional taxes on the tourism sector could reduce Barbados’ competitiveness as a tourist destination. In an analysis of the $1.2 Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation Plan presented by Prime Minister Mia Mottley in Parliament yesterday as a mini Budget, the reputed multinational professional services firm […]
Government’s decision to make local online shoppers pay Value Added Tax (VAT) on their transactions has caught the island’s private sector by surprise, with officials expressing concern about how the levy will be collected. Among a $1.2 billion package of austerity measures, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mia Mottley announced in Parliament on Monday […]
Within the next two months some hotel properties on the west coast could see their water bills climbing to $60,000 a month as a result of Government’s decision to impose and additional 50 per cent of the water bills of businesses as a Garbage and Sewage Contribution (GSC). This means that a business that has […]
The grouping of practising economists here believes today’s budgetary measures announced by Prime Minister Mia Mottley appear to be in line with its own objectives and those of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with which the new administration hopes to enter a bailout agreement. However, the Barbados Economic Society (BES) said the $1.2 billion package […]
Border control officers who had been battling for three years to stymie a Government plan to subsume the Customs Department into the Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) will get their wish after all. Prime Minister Mia Mottley today announced she would put a stop to the merger plans announced by then Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler […]
The cost of telecommunications services in Barbados is going up high. The Irish-based Digicel this month began transferring customers from one of its “bundled and broadband-only plans” to a replacement plan with higher rates, while its main domestic competitor Flow has put its customers on notice of price hike come next month. Effective July 1, […]
Barbadians paid slightly more for electricity last month, owing to an increase in the Fuel Clause Adjustment (FCA). While the FCA rate remains low compared to prior years when it reached a high as 47 cents per kilowatt-hour (KWh), it jumped to 28.6051 cents per/KWh in May, up from the 27.4759 cents/KWh a month prior. […]
The Barbados Economic Society (BES) is warning Government and private sector firms that they could face difficulties in accessing foreign commercial financing at reasonable interest rates, in light of Barbados’ latest downgrade by Standard and Poor’s (S&P). S&P has lowered the island’s long-term foreign currency rating to selective default, following the June 1 announcement by […]
