Government is planning to roll out a new framework of standards for businesses in the coming months.
On Monday, while visiting Trust Fund Limited and Fund Access clients as well as members of the Small Business Association, Minister of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Kerrie Symmonds, announced Government’s plans to work with the Barbados National Standards Institution (BNSI) to create a new framework of standards awareness.
Symmonds explained that it was necessary for local businesses to meet international standards given the decline in foreign revenue coming into the island as a result of the pandemic. He expressed that businesses should not only rebound locally but also tap into international markets.
“It makes no sense hoping that we can return to a pre-COVID environment…we must now be prepared to lift all of these products not only on to Barbadian countertops and in their homes, but into Europe, across CARICOM and into the United States and that is the only way in which we compensate for the shortfall in foreign exchange brought about by the tourism situation,” Minister Symmonds said.
The Minister of Small Business said that the critical role of the BNSI requires a greater understanding of their function in the conduct of business.
“It is important that everything we do, be done to a level of excellence which allows not only our Barbadian customers, but the international community to know the quality that we are doing and to be able to place reliance on it and that is where the Barbados National Standards Institution comes in,” he continued.
Minister Symmonds accompanied by ministerial officials, members of the Small Business Association, and the financing agencies, toured Bajan Rum Cakes, Golden Touch Spa, R. T.’s Brewing Company Limited, and Crumbz Bakery.
