Ensuring our competitive edge is vital to any economic restructuring programme that Barbados undertakes.
So states the Executive Director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados (ICAB), Reginald Farley, who spoke with The Barbados Advocate yesterday at the Hilton Hotel after the press launch for Accountants’ Week 2017, being held under the theme of “Charting the Course – Exploring the Possibilities”.
He said that this is imperative because if we want to move upwards in both The Ease of Doing Business Index and The Global Competitiveness Index, it will call for more than just making improvements internally. It will also require comparing how we are doing in various areas that make up these indexes.
In fact, when you compare Barbados to Jamaica, you can see that while Barbados has dropped in ranking for both indexes, Jamaica has risen and this is because Jamaica has deliberately taken steps to enhance the criteria that constitute these indexes.
Farley said that when it comes to tourism, for example, the Jamaican Minister of Tourism has stated that one of his goals is to ensure that Jamaica becomes the leading destination for British tourists in the short-term, a spot that is currently being held by Barbados.
“So again, we are saying that we have to look at not only making improvements, but also making sure that in terms of our competitive position, we beat some of these other countries because we are all competing for investments in international business; investments in manufacturing; in agriculture; and our tourism industry in particular.
“Jamaica for example, is really going after the same market that we are going after. The Jamaican Minister of Tourism said that he wants to make Jamaica the leading destination for British tourists in the short term. Right now that is Barbados. So they are targeting our market,” Farley pointed out
“They are also looking to go into International Financial Services, an area that has been our market for years. I mean there is nothing wrong with what they are doing, but we have to make sure that having been earlier in the game, that we continue to improve and that we continue to change to keep ourselves attractive and to keep ourselves competitive.
“So those statistics are just an example to show why it is important to not just look inward, but to look across the world to see if other countries, if other destinations are doing the same things that we are doing. Are they doing it better? Are their prices better? Is their quality better? Is their service better? And then use those as our specific measurable targets. These numbers should not take us by surprise. So we have to look at these numbers and determine in five years, at what number do we want to be and what steps are need to do that.”