Investment from the North
Thursday May 19 2011 | 04:49 AM

Several Canadian businesses are lining up to invest in Barbados.

And if they are successful in doing so, Minister of International Business, George Hutson, hopes they will be providing a significant number of jobs for Barbadians, unlike some past investors.

In an initiative called "Expand into Barbados - A Practical Perspective", advisory firm Deloitte's Barbados and Toronto offices have from Monday hosted "a select number of Canada-based clients who are interested in expanding their operations into Barbados".

As a result of the venture, which concludes tomorrow, the overseas clients were exposed to a series of presentations related to conducting business in the local market.

News of the venture was given today during at luncheon at Tapas, Hastings, Christ Church.

Deloitte Barbados Partner, Tax Services, Ikins Clarke, said the four-day event was an ideal way to promote Barbados and highlight the country's viability as a practical option for commercial and investment opportunities. "The Expand into Barbados initiative will be beneficial for all involved as we continue our efforts to further position Barbados as an attractive destination not invest and do business," he said.

"The participating clients will be exposed to valuable information and receive a first-hand look at some of the vast opportunities available in Barbados. Partner of International Tax Services at Deloitte Toronto, Dennis Domazet, said the trip had been beneficial to the businesses.

"The purpose of the ... initiative was to familiarise ourselves and our clients that were looking to expand into Barbados with the business opportunities and the options on the island and I think we can say that ... we are very, very impressed with what we have seen so far from a business perspective, from a cultural perspective, quality of the workforce, infrastructure, everything has been successful," he said.

Hutson said he was happy with the type of business keen to invest in Barbados, including manufacturers and data entry firms, since these offered more job opportunities.

"That is the sort of business that I think that we welcome in Barbados because one of the challenges that we have is a lot of the international businesses that are registered in Barbados ... the numbers of persons that are employed are often small numbers because a lot of the companies coming in are coming in to take advantage of the various tax treaties and so on that we have been negotiating with Canada, the UK, the US, to name a few," he noted.

"And often, while the transactions may be large in terms of the dollar figure the actual numbers of persons that are employed are in small numbers. Some of these businesses may only employ four or five persons."

He was happy Barbados was "able over the past two years as a government to be able to ride out the international financial crisis and come out of that in pretty good shape" including the international businesses sector.