From the Publisher

2020 will go down in history as the year when the Covid-19 pandemic severely disrupted the world and left an indelible mark on just about every country on earth. In the vast majority of cases the economic impact was predominantly negative, most notably for those nations traditionally reliant upon travel and tourism as a major source of income.

With Barbados falling squarely into that category, it was inevitable that our physically diminutive country would have to deal head-on with an unprecedented array of complex and potentially destructive challenges. Having started 2020 in a buoyant mood, with justifiable aspirations for a productive year ahead, Barbados unexpectedly found itself staring down the barrel of a fully-loaded gun, aimed directly at our health, economic and social security. For a small Caribbean island with limited resources, already committed to a stringent programme of fiscal recovery and national transformation, the damaging consequences of Covid-19 could have been permanently crippling.

Thankfully, as the popular adage reminds us, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. Not for the first time, Barbados demonstrated its remarkable capacity to remain resilient in the face of major adversity. Under the astute and resolute leadership of our Prime Minister, the Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, the Government rapidly established a cross-sector task force to formulate and execute a national strategy to combat and minimalize the detrimental effects of the pandemic at all levels. Such was the success of the Government’s early intervention, ably reinforced by the laudable willingness of Barbadians to abide by the promptly imposed protocols, Barbados was soon being recognized internationally as a rare Covid-19 success story. With

Prime Minister Mottley frequently featured on international primetime TV and online news channels, Barbados suddenly became a buzz word. In something of a stroke of genius, the authorities capitalized on this surge of widespread media popularity by launching a 12-month Welcome Stamp visa programme, specifically targeted at people with the capacity to work remotely. The core message behind the initiative was that Barbados is truly a wonderful place to live, work and play – even during a global pandemic.

Business Barbados has been broadcasting that same positive message for decades, actively encouraging successful entrepreneurs and high-net worth individuals to relocate here. While doing so, we have placed particular emphasis on the fact that ‘Barbados can be good for your business and good for you’, by offering substantial health and wellbeing benefits, which in many ways can perhaps be even more attractive than the many business advantages afforded by this well-structured jurisdiction. Our basic approach was to suggest a reversal of priorities. Instead of living and working in a highly demanding, relentlessly paced, pressure laden urban environment - then coming to Barbados on vacation as a way to mentally recover and improve your physical health - why not move to Barbados and enjoy our wholesome outdoors lifestyle all year round, while continuing to run your business. Then go back to your country of origin for a vacation whenever you have the urge. And it can be done. As evidenced by the many enterprising individuals and companies who have already taken that bold step.

Perhaps the biggest difference between 10-years ago and today, other than the fact that the message is now reaching a much wider audience, is that the harsh realities of Covid-19 have compelled more people, especially families, to seriously reevaluate what is most important to them in life. And, by launching the Welcome Stamp visa programme, the Government has given non-Barbadians an easily accessible opportunity to come and experience life in Barbados – for weeks, months or a whole year –as a way to not only ask themselves those searching questions, but also to discover some of the answers.

In keeping with the Government’s thrust to attract more members of the international community to become part of the fabric of our society, in both the short and long term, we have dedicated this 2021 edition of Business Barbados to the Welcome Stamp and the general theme of relocating to Barbados. As an integral part of that strategy, we also offer articles that provide some insight into the island’s capacity to host and support international businesses, including first-hand testimonials by people who have actually made that successful transition.

Should you be interested in doing any research, learning about possible opportunities, or reading a further selection of real-life stories of foreigners who have made Barbados their home, we invite you to visit our website BusinessBarbados.com

Similarly, you can learn more about the many lifestyle advantages that Barbados has to offer through our tourism website InsandOutsofBarbados.com

Furthermore, as a citizen of Barbados who relocated here from the United Kingdom over forty years ago, and having been deeply immersed in multiple aspects of Barbadian life ever since, I personally invite you to make contact and ask any appropriate questions that you think I might be able to help answer.

Meanwhile, we all look forward to the day when we can tell you, ‘Welcome to Barbados’.

Best wishes

Keith Miller

keith@millerpublishing.net

Publisher’s Note: All of the articles in this edition were written prior to December 2020. As such, any statistics regarding Covid19 will automatically and unavoidably be outdated by the time you read this publication. For up to date information please refer to the Barbados Government Information Service website: https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/covid-19/

Mia Amor Mottley, QC, MP Prime Minister

COVID-19 has been our most challenging test. The Caribbean, the most travel-dependent region in the world, has been the hardest hit by the century's biggest catastrophe. But it also brought out the best of Barbados. Pandemics are spread through behaviour, and so the best antidote to a pandemic is a sense of community and public decency, things that Barbadians hold dear.

The Government also took care to earn and retain our citizens' trust through these uncertain times by placing public health at the heart of our decisions making, buttressed by constant communication honest information, and ensuring that our public health experts had access to what they needed. We built a brand new hospital in weeks and stocked it with the necessary equipment.

We had one effective lockdown from March to May, and rigorous testing and tracing protocols meant we have not so far needed another. Having earned public trust through deeds, we were also able to express Barbadians' humanity. We allowed people to safely quarantine on our island when their own refused them entry, and when others turned them away, we let the thousands of stranded cruise ship workers stay in our waters safely and helped them home.

We are not out of the woods yet. And the public health priority has demanded ingenuity in our economic policy. At one point in April, our unemployment rate went above 40 per cent. In a time of two-week quarantines, short-stay tourists were staying home. At the same time, those visitors who were inadvertently stuck in Barbados were so enjoying their stay and so fearful of the chaos back home, that they asked to stay longer.

One thing led to another, and the 12-month Welcome Stamp was born, enabling people to stay and work remotely in our country without changing their tax residency. It has been more successful than our wildest dreams. Not only has it proven very popular on its own, with thousands now staying in villas and hotels for periods ranging from three to 12 months, but for every "stamper”, there has been a multitude of friends that have come to visit them.

Twelve-month stampers are far more engaged in our community and economy than someone on a short break. They have been joining gyms and hiking clubs, forming friendships, and attending theatre and musical shows. The programme has inadvertently caught a wave that was not so obvious before — professionals who are also digital nomads and an even larger number aspiring to join the group. The 12-month stamp is potentially reinventing the visitor economy.

This phenomenon, coupled with short-stay travellers recognising that we are a safe jurisdiction, where safe people do safe things in safe ways, has helped our economy recover. Records suggest unemployment has already dropped significantly from its April peak.

We were in the mindset of re-invention before COVID-19. A lost decade for the economy forced us to make some bold choices in 2018 and 2019. We chose to maintain the value of the Barbados dollar, held at 2:1 to the US dollar since 1975, restructure our debt, reform public enterprises and do all of that while strengthening the hallmarks of Barbadian society such as free universal public education and health and a social safety net of public pensions and unemployment benefits.

Much of that paid off during COVID-19. Our unemployment benefit system paid out almost 1.5 per cent of GDP in a few months to keep people’s heads above water as tourism shut down. Sound fiscal management the year prior meant we could launch the most generous wage subsidy programme of any developing country, and all the while, our corporation tax revenues went up as international companies sought to redomicile in Barbados.

Our tax philosophy is to tax more things people chose to spend money on, goods and land, rather than on their income from work. That has allowed us to marry strong public services with the lowest structure of corporate income tax rates in the world and some of the most competitive personal income taxes. We know that tax is just one part of it when it comes to business, and we are investing heavily in easing the time and cost of doing business through digitising government services, licensing, and payments.

Although we are a natural fit for new investments in the visitor economy, including health and educational tourism, and our 2030 carbon-net-neutral target is spurring investments in renewable energies, we welcome all value-added business. Our aim is that when all things are considered, from a sense of place, community, safety, a healthy, educated citizenry, and an easy, low-tax business environment, we are the best place to live and work for our people and our visitors.

Come and see for yourself. Come early though, 2021 looks set to be a busy one!

Mia Amor Mottley, QC, MP Prime Minister

The COVID-19 pandemic narrative repeatedly chants phrases like “unprecedented circumstances”, “worst recession in history” and “the new normal”. Portrayals of the pandemic’s daily impacts which evoked awestruck shock and horror in April 2020, lead people merely to shake their heads and sigh several months later. By late November 2020, we expected the formidable “second wave” that is surging around the world at the time of writing, and we were unsurprised by widespread new lockdowns. By then the pandemic had firmly established itself as the backdrop to our daily reality.

Meanwhile we have been led to an universal re-evaluation of the way in which we live. Deep reflections on the fundamentals of home life, family dynamics, community, location-based working, productivity, work-life balance, and health and wellness, have led to a “reset” on what really matters.

On any comparative analysis, Barbados has done an outstanding job of mitigating the potential impacts of the pandemic and managing the country’s experience, while societies around the world have been churned up by contagion and widespread citizen disregard for health and safety protocols.

In March 2020 the Barbados government quickly put together a team of experts to manage the situation, and our Prime Minister, the Hon. Mia Amor Mottley, took a very personal interest in their work, engaging directly herself at intervals. After a decisive, brief and effective lockdown during May, the initial relatively small numbers of infection were brought firmly under control and lockdown protocols were thereafter carefully eased in phases.

At the same time a culture was seeded, nurtured and established, of community-centric behaviours that have been widely adopted within everyday life in Barbados. Specifically, rigorous mask wearing in public, social distancing and careful hygiene practices. As a society, there has been no real hesitation in embracing these behaviours. In the retail and wider commercial sector it is not possible to conduct business in public without wearing a mask, or without undergoing a temperature check and hand sanitization at the relevant threshold. These are routine process with which everyone is familiar, and the vast majority of people readily comply. In addition, no offence is taken if in public you are asked to adjust your mask, step back, or reminded to sanitize. These have become part of our social graces, and the vast majority of people are indeed gracious, about adhering to them, for the common good.

Today’s numbers tell the 2020 story eloquently. After identifying our first cases in March and having our borders open since July, Barbados has 270 cases confirmed (from over 40,000 tests done) and 7 deaths. Meanwhile, globally, there are 62.3 million confirmed cases and 1.45 million deaths. Based on these numbers Barbados is extraordinarily appealing, as a safe and wholesome location, despite the global ravages of the Coronavirus.

Not only has Barbados emerged as a haven for health and wellness, it is and has long been a place of genuine welcome. The Barbados welcome stamp https://barbadoswelcomestamp.bb/ was launched in 2020 soon after our borders re-opened after lockdown. Of course, Barbadians have opened their arms to tourists for generations. As a Barbadian child in the ’70s, I absorbed the national mantra intoned daily over the radio: “Tourism is our business, let’s play our part”.

For locals, sharing the bounty of life in Barbados is much more than a business. Hospitality is deeply ingrained in our consciousness. We take it personally. Of course, tourism has long been a critical pillar of the economy (along with global business); but the Barbadian approach is more than a sales-oriented refrain.

It is about heartfelt welcome.

It is about being quietly proud of our Island’s exquisite natural beauty, and our rich culture.

It is about extending the local community circle to visitors who seek the embrace of life in a stable, peaceful society, where violent crime is at a minimum and personal safety is easy to maintain with a modicum of routine carefulness.

It is also about family and familiarity and personalized relationship-driven human interaction. Social linkages and the support they provide are very important here. If as a visitor you have a logistical issue or problem, someone you meet within a short time of arriving, will know someone who knows someone, who can help with the solution. Anonymity and isolation are in short supply.

Self-evidently, the “Bajan welcome” is multifaceted. It is also about sharing the diversity of exquisite island experiences on offer: from the untouched, dramatic beauty of the east and north coast beaches to the pink-sand and glittering azure seas of the south and west coasts; from the eclectic sophistication of upscale restaurants and designer/artsy retail in St. James and St. Peter, to the rootsy country bars serving earthy delicacies like Bajan cheese “cutters”, fried pork, pudding and souse and pickled “sea cat”; from watching cricket at the Kensington Oval to surfing one of Kelly Slater’s favourite spots at Soup Bowl, Bathsheba; from swimming with the turtles in Carlisle Bay to an exhilarating day of horse racing at the Garrison Savannah; from hiking a verdant dawn trail through rolling hills, to sitting by the sea watching the sun slip behind the horizon under a sky splashed in kaleidoscopic hues. I could wax lyrical for pages, not paragraphs.

Besides the inimitable Barbadian “welcome”, some practicalities are critical. We are at a defining moment in global history, when work and productivity are no longer necessarily office-centric. Functionality, comfort and respite in the home space have become even more crucial, because safety and wellness depends so much on being able to spend more time in that space, during working and school hours and in leisure time.

As a corollary to that, the simplest pleasures and pastimes now resonate with us as imperatives, in a life where previously the trappings of a more complex existence often distracted us from the fundamentals. As the seasons change farther away from the Equator, reduced sunlight hours and freezing temperatures encroach, while the ability to safely spend time on a socially distanced basis out of doors dwindles. Resilient extroverts may don their layers and put handwarmers in their pockets, but even then, spending several hours out of doors in sub-zero temperatures, so as to safely visit with people, or exercise in a well ventilated space, is not appealing.

In Barbados winters feature warm days, cool nights, breezes and incandescently beautiful skies and seas. There is an excellent supply of accommodations, offering year-round beautiful open air spaces and appropriate infrastructure for residential working spaces.

Another commodity, which has become even more starkly important than ever before, is connectivity and bandwidth. For families with adults working from home and children attending online school and other activities, solid internet infrastructure is vital. In Barbados, there is excellent connectivity and bandwidth. Visitors often remark at the internet speeds achievable here. Shortly after lock down I upgraded our bandwidth at home from 20MB to 600MB and subscribed with the same provider for an extensive internet television service, for the equivalent of US$10 more than I was already paying. In our household we routinely have four or five persons simultaneously using the internet to stream, and to download and upload substantial documents and media files. As to service continuity, the only time when our internet has failed for more than half a day, during the last several years, was during an island-wide power outage during an electrical storm.

Quite apart from pandemic-management and related healthcare system successes, the Barbados medical sector is wellfurnished with plenty of modern features. These include: a cadre of post graduate-trained medical and surgical specialists; easy access to diagnostic radiological processes and investigations at accredited laboratories; access to medical concierge services, home consultations and home care; growing deployment of telemedical consultations; and private and public hospital facilities.

In terms of education, Barbadians are famously literate and well educated. The state school system guarantees an essentially free education up to university entrance age, with affordable tertiary pursuits offered by the globally accredited University of the West Indies. (As well as the Barbados campus, sister campuses thrive in Trinidad and Jamaica as well). There are also several private school options at infants, primary and secondary level, including a school which offers the Baccalaureate, and other secondary schools offering careful preparation to university level for those seeking admission to university whether in the region, in the UK or in North America. Admissions are open to non-nationals throughout the education arena, though tuition fees can be slightly higher.

Honestly, the allure of Barbados as a place to holiday, remotely work or study, and live permanently, cannot be adequately captured in an article. Come and see for yourself. Our cornucopia of daily-life amenities and pleasures unfolds best through your own individual experience, in a wholesome environment where the welcome is as warm as the sunshine.

Editor’s Note: This article was written prior to December 2020. As such, any statistics regarding Covid-19 will automatically and unavoidably be outdated by the time you read this publication. For up to date information please refer to the Barbados Government Information Service website: https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/covid-19/