Minister of Energy and Business, Senator Lisa Cummins, speaking to participants of the Barbados Coalition of Service Industries’ First Council of Leaders Meeting, at Warrens Suite, Baobab Tower, today. (C. Pitt/BGIS)
The Ministry of Energy and Business has launched Scale Up Barbados, and the initiative, which is designed to assist local businesses, is about to “hit” the market.
Minister of Energy and Business, Senator Lisa Cummins, underscored the importance of the initiative as she delivered the feature address at the Barbados Coalition of Service Industries’ First Council of Leaders Meeting, at Warrens Suite, Baobab Tower, Warrens, St. Michael, today.
Scale Up Barbados is meant to help businesses grow from its current stage to another.
Senator Cummins told her audience: “We need to now challenge ourselves to go beyond what we have seen of ourselves in terms of potential. We are that group of people…that have the capacity to grow businesses, from small, to medium, to large, to franchisable, and then to global,” she said.
She noted that the energy sector has a predominantly large base of smaller companies that have significant growth potential.
She disclosed that her Ministry, in collaboration with the Ministries of Labour and the Environment, was preparing a body of work called “The Future of Work” in energy, which is skills and services driven.
“What does our energy mix look like until 2035? What skills will we need to be able to deliver on that? That’s the work that we’re doing now. This association, led in this instance by BREA (Barbados Renewable Energy Association), needs to be working with the Ministry on those things.
“We need to be able to rationalise what local content looks like, so that when large companies come into Barbados to do business and bring investment, that there’s a local company that is able to partner and attract capital, resources, technology transfer, and spawn innovation,” Senator Cummins stated.
During her address, the Minister updated on Business Barbados, the new entity which was announced in this year’s Budgetary Proposals and Financial Statement.
She reminded that CAIPO will be subsumed within Business Barbados, which has a much broader mandate, and it will be separated into two entities.
“Once and for all, like so many other countries around the world, we will separate out the work being done for the corporate registry…. But importantly, … the IP sector will be separated out, and there will be a stand-alone intellectual property agency that will deal with all things IP-related. And we’re working now with WIPO to structure what that looks like.
“We have the draft of the Business Barbados Bill, which will then bring it into law. And, the arrangement is that once that has been proclaimed, we have completed the negotiations with labour unions; we have facilitated the transition of the teams; we will then have the launch of Business Barbados,” she explained.
Senator Cummins added that there are over 15 pieces of legislation administered presently by CAIPO on the corporate registry side, and they are currently being examined meticulously.