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.
Symmonds sees “the togetherness and the networking of businesses that the co-operatives movement promotes,” as an instrument that “can act to support a system of inter-business collaboration that would allow for the reduction of production costs across member businesses, the sharing of knowledge and the acquisition of affordable training for members.”
The Barbadian minister also said that the kind of collaboration which the cooperative affords can serve as the driving force behind realising market competitiveness for small businesses which he believes is “necessary for the building of a sound small business sector, diversifying the Barbados economy and achieving the ultimate goal of a stable economy and sustainable economic growth and development.”
Since the establishment of the first cooperative society, the St. Barnabas Cooperative Marketing Society Ltd in 1952, the Barbadian cooperative movement has expanded to thirty-two registered non-financial cooperatives and thirty-nine registered friendly societies.
The accumulated assets of Barbadian financial cooperatives are estimated at around Bds$2.4 billion whilst these boast more than 21,000 members and employ more than five hundred individuals. The assets of Barbadian non-financial cooperatives are estimated at around Bds$10.6 million. These reportedly have a membership numbering 1,350 and employ 100 individuals.
Symmonds boasts that collectively, the cooperative movement in Barbados “has been a source of economic and social elevation for many Barbadians as it continues to contribute to the alleviation of poverty across Barbados and to create many entrepreneurial opportunities for Barbadians in the small business sector.”
