Barbados Offshore Sector Being Treated 'With Indifference'

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

04 February 2004

The Barbados International Business Association chief, Henserson Holmes, was scathing about attitudes towards the jurisdiction’s offshore sector last week, arguing that the vitally important pillar of the nation’s economy was being treated with “indifference”.

“We are treated right now as though it is an invisible sector”, the BIBA executive director told the monthly luncheon of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce. “If you think of Barbados in a globalised economy, there is no other sector that has the capacity to generate the quality jobs which Barbados would have to generate for a population that is providing free education right up to university level,” Holmes observed.

The BIBA chief pointed out that extra growth in the business sector would also translate into higher tax revenues for the government. He argued that 15% growth in the sector would generate $500 million in tax receipts, making up the $200 million projected to be lost by the government as it forges ahead with membership of the Caribbean Single Market.

Holmes commented that a lack of research into the jurisdiction’s international business sector indicated a certain indifference to its importance. He remarked that if and when analysis is carried out, “we will realise this sector is a very substantial sector and it has the capacity to move Barbados into the first world”.

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