In an interview with The Nassau Guardian recently, President of the Bahamian Chamber of Commerce, Raymond Winder warned that if the jurisdiction does not look closely at the issues which negatively affected the growth of its economy and financial services sector last year, it will continue to face them in 2003.
Although he accepted that the September 11 attacks and increased scrutiny from the OECD over the past few years have had an impact on the Bahamas, and continue to do so, Mr Winder explained that a more pressing concern in terms of attracting new business is to offer competitive services and value for money. He suggested to the local newspaper that relatively speaking, the Bahamas has become an expensive place in which to do business.
‘We do not have the level of productivity and the level of services to justify what it costs to do business in the Bahamas,’ he argued, continuing: ‘That is our major challenge in 2003…Depending on how we begin to come to grips with that problem will determine ultimately, how quickly we will be able to turn this around.’
The Chamber of Commerce chief went on to cite the example of the Cayman Islands, which have traditionally been a more expensive location, but have continued to attract new business and investment at a fairly steady rate, despite the current economic climate.
‘This tells me that it is not a September 11 phenomenon; it states clearly that we have some other issues going on in our business environment.’
Concluding his observations on the Bahamian finance centre, Mr Winder suggested that over the coming year, the jurisdiction needs to focus on offering services to investors and businesses in line with rising costs, explaining that if the business and financial community continues to focus on September 11 and the OECD as the factors behind all of its woes: ‘we are not going anywhere because we are not dealing with the real problem.’
By Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com
