Barbados' Services Sector An Opportunity For Diversification

• Published date: 28 April 2021
• Subject Matter: Energy and Natural Resources, Energy Law, Renewables
• Law Firm: Invest Barbados
• Author: Invest Barbados

Barbados' Minister of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Kerrrie Symonds, believes that the services sector presents future opportunities for diversification of the island's economy.

He emphasised this point recently while speaking during the Barbados Coalition of Service Industries' Fishbowl Conversation Series on Facebook live, where the topic for discussion was Services for Economic Resilience and Post-Pandemic Recovery.

Minister Symmonds reasoned that the renewable energy (RE) sector could be used more effectively to expand the services sector and build out a cadre of skilled nationals, as "renewable energy endeavours expanded across CARICOM states".

Noting that the tourism sector was "here to stay", he added: "The renewable energy sector allows for co-investment in other sectors, so that, for example, you can make agriculture a lot more competitive by way of bringing the RE and indeed the digital technology into the agricultural space, so that agriculture really comes into the 21st Century and in similar vein, transportation."

He continued: "What we really want to be able to do is to have a menu of options at the disposal of a young Barbadian, who may, 10 years from now, be saying 'what do I want to do with my life?' And if the feeling is that you want to go into services, then you have a range of choices before you."

The Energy Minister told participants that it was Government's intention to have 25 per cent of the grid capacity dedicated to service entities that were critical to the national development infrastructure of the economy and those that had become "increasingly lumpy" because of the weightiness of the maintenance bill.

"So...