The Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment has hint­ed at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of changes be­ing made to the Eco­nom­ic Sub­stance Act, chang­ing the num­ber of ways in which the is­land moves from be­ing a nom­i­nal tax ju­ris­dic­tion to be­ing a pref­er­en­tial tax ju­ris­dic­tion.

En­er­gy and Busi­ness Min­is­ter, Lisa Cum­mins, ad­dress­ing the me­dia launch of the Glob­al Busi­ness Week 2025, said a process of reg­u­la­to­ry re­form.

“You’ve seen much of this hap­pen­ing since last year Jan­u­ary, when we had the cor­po­ra­tion tax re­form. And I’m hap­py to share with you, if it has not al­ready hit your desk, that the (new) Eco­nom­ic Sub­stance Bill is go­ing to be com­ing up for con­sul­ta­tion on some changes that are go­ing to come down the pipe.

“To­geth­er with the In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Unit and the Bar­ba­dos Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty, we are go­ing to be mak­ing some changes to the Eco­nom­ic Sub­stance Act, and that will change a num­ber of the ways in which we move from be­ing a nom­i­nal tax ju­ris­dic­tion to be­ing a pref­er­en­tial tax ju­ris­dic­tion, and that will have sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tions, in a pos­i­tive way, for the glob­al busi­ness sec­tor,” Cum­mings said.

Glob­al  Busi­ness Week will be ob­served from Oc­to­ber 19 to 25, un­der the theme ”Re­silience: Adapt­ing, Trans­form­ing, Thriv­ing”.

Cum­mins said busi­ness fa­cil­i­ta­tion was now mov­ing in­to a digi­tised space, not­ing that Busi­ness Bar­ba­dos had part­nered with Mi­crosoft, and over the next eight months, ex­pect­ed to tran­si­tion to a new dig­i­tal plat­form.

She not­ed the im­por­tance of the cre­ation of Busi­ness Bar­ba­dos while ac­knowl­edg­ing that it was not yet per­fect and that the chair­man of Busi­ness Bar­ba­dos, Con­nie Smith and her team are steer­ing this ship in the right di­rec­tion, but it will take time.

“ In rear­ing a child, you don’t change be­hav­iour overnight. It takes some time, … train­ing, and … re­ori­en­ta­tion, and that train­ing and re-ori­en­ta­tion have firm­ly be­gun in Busi­ness Bar­ba­dos,” she said, not­ing that the glob­al en­vi­ron­ment is chang­ing, and it is chal­leng­ing be­cause a slow­er and more frag­ment­ed world econ­o­my is be­ing seen.

“It’s re­duc­ing trade, clos­ing bor­ders and damp­en­ing in­vest­ment. For Bar­ba­dos, what this means is that there’s fiercer com­pe­ti­tion for man­dates. We have, … un­der the treaty ne­go­ti­at­ing team for Bar­ba­dos, this year, com­plet­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions with Hong Kong in just one round of ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“So, we have a new dou­ble tax­a­tion agree­ment with Hong Kong that is now go­ing through the sys­tem…, and…we have al­so com­plet­ed, in an­oth­er sin­gle round, ne­go­ti­a­tions with Cu­raçao. We have new dou­ble tax­a­tion agree­ments that I’m hop­ing that, to­geth­er with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, we can merge in­to a bi­lat­er­al in­vest­ment treaty and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for glob­al busi­ness to grow,” she said.

Cum­mings urged all stake­hold­ers to turn the chal­lenges in­to new op­por­tu­ni­ties and com­mit to un­lock­ing growth, even in these most chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic times.

Bar­ba­dos In­ter­na­tion­al  Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (BI­BA) pres­i­dent, Mar­lon Yarde, de­scribed Glob­al Busi­ness Week as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage, con­nect, and reaf­firm the val­ue of glob­al busi­ness to Bar­ba­dos. He said Bar­ba­dos re­mains a trust­ed busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment for in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors.

“Our lo­ca­tion, in­fra­struc­ture, and skilled work­force make us com­pet­i­tive. Our sta­bil­i­ty and ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets make us at­trac­tive. This week is about reaf­firm­ing why in­vestors con­tin­ue to choose Bar­ba­dos – and how we must con­tin­ue to adapt and trans­form to thrive,” Yarde said.

The chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of In­vest Bar­ba­dos, Kaye-Anne Greenidge, un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the glob­al busi­ness sec­tor.

“Be­yond the crit­i­cal role it plays in po­si­tion­ing Bar­ba­dos re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as a ju­ris­dic­tion of choice, the sec­tor is equal­ly im­por­tant to us here at home. It cre­ates jobs for Bar­ba­di­ans, fa­cil­i­tates the trans­fer of skills, strength­ens our pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices and con­tributes di­rect­ly to sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth for our coun­try. These are re­al and mea­sur­able ben­e­fits that im­pact fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties and the wider na­tion,” Greenidge said.

She not­ed that Bar­ba­dos is a pre­ferred choice for the cap­tive in­sur­ance busi­ness and ranks among the top 10 cap­tive in­sur­ance domi­ciles glob­al­ly.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Oct 1, CMC

CMC/ah/ir/2025