Executive Director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados (ICAB), Reginald Farley, addressing the press launch yesterday at the Hilton Hotel for Accountants’ Week 2017, which is being held under the theme of ‘Charting the Course – Exploring the Possibilities’.
When it comes to the ease of doing business and performing well when it comes to global competitiveness, Barbados is in “reverse gear” while Jamaica is in “forward gear”.
This is according to the Executive Director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados (ICAB), Reginald Farley. He spoke with The Barbados Advocate yesterday at the Hilton Hotel after the press launch for Accountants’ Week 2017, which is being held under the theme “Charting the Course – Exploring the Possibilities”.
He stated that when you compare countries in such areas as their success rate in developing their respective economies and ensuring stabilisation of the same economy, you can see how two places in the same region could be moving in completely opposite directions, highlighting the cases of Barbados and Jamaica as examples.
“Clearly our interest in the plan (The Barbados Sustainable Recovery Plan 2017) is especially focusing on growth because we really need to grow the economy out of its problems. So yes, there is stabilisation that is required, but we really need to restructure the economies to make sure that they are competitive, and in that regard we looked at Barbados and Jamaica as two examples of countries and we took two indicators – The Ease of Doing Business Index and The Global Competitiveness Index."
Farley stated that when it comes to The Ease of Doing Business Index, which is published by the World Bank, you can see how Barbados has fallen 29 spots in the ranking when comparing the figures from 2016-2017 to those previously given in 2013; while Jamaica has risen 23 spots in the same period.
“So if we look at them for 2013 and 2016-2017, The Ease of Doing Business, the ranking for Barbados was 88 out of 190 countries and Jamaica’s rank was 90. But 2016-2017, Barbados had fallen to 117 out of a 130 countries and Jamaica had 67. So clearly they [Jamaica] took reform steps to improve the business facilitation and make it easier to do business because those things attract investors.”
As for the figures in The Global Competitiveness Index, which is published by the World Economic Forum, Barbados fell by 25 spots while Jamaica rose by 19 spots.
“If you look at the Global Competitiveness Index, in 2013 Barbados ranked 47, I believe, out of an index of 138 countries that submitted information; and Jamaica ranked 94. By 2016-2017, Barbados’ rank was 72 and Jamaica’s as 75.
“Now certainly Barbados is ahead of Jamaica, but we are now only three points ahead as compared to almost 50 points previously,” he stated.
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