Even as Barbados, along with the rest of the Caribbean, continues to feel the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic particularly in the small business sector, its government appears to be backing the cooperatives sector to help navigate the country through its current economic challenges.
This week the Barbados Minister of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Kerrie Symmonds, says he believes that the country’s cooperative movement will play a pivotal role in the empowerment of the Barbadian business sector. In a message delivered to mark International Day of Cooperatives, celebrated on Saturday July 3 under the theme “Rebuild Better Together”, the Barbadian minister expressed the view that the cooperative movement was an innovative means through which businesses can realise economies of scale and reduce costs in pursuit of the acquisition of inputs for their productive pursuits and for the marketing of their goods. “Such economies of scale can also be realized when small businesses with similar production processes, within a co-operatives setting, share machinery and other relevant assets such as modes of transportation of inputs and final products,” the Barbadian government official is quoted as saying.
