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Overall productivity in Barbados has to be improved

BARBADOS – Overall productivity in Barbados has to be improved if this country’s economy is expected to continue its growth and that growth is sustained over the long run.

That is according to Minister of Economic Affairs and Development, Mia Mottley, who was addressing participants at the opening of this year’s annual Week of Excellence program at the Grand Salle, Central Bank.

She said: “If Barbados’ growth is supposed to be sustained even further, and if the expectation of the global community of Barbados’ ability to reach the next plateau of development is to come through, then there are aspects of our activity and organization as a country that need attention. One of these areas is overall productivity.”

Citing a negative approach to the gathering and review of data as one of the obstacles to achieving overall productivity, she stated that “there is not a natural disposition … to the collection of data and to the review it allow firms, at small and medium sized levels, to be able to measure where they are, where they were and where they want to be”.

She added: “It is one of the first hurdles that must be overcome if we are to move beyond the larger scale enterprises that over the last 15 years have already taken on board performance based incentives schemes”.

Ms. Mottley also mentioned the need for the re-engineering of work processes to help with overall productivity. She opined that the Productivity Council along with other institutions could play a critical role, in this regard particularly within the manufacturing sector.

She called on the Council to embark on a sustained national high profile program that would “help to reposition the issue of overall productivity in this country”.

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