March 13, 2024
ROUGH DRAFT –
Transcript of remarks by the Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, SC, MP, at the Official Opening of Haymans Market
00:30:24:12 – 00:31:09:19
Thank you very much, Bernie and distinguished guests all. It is a good thing to be in an environment that is as pleasant, as bucolic, and as reminiscent of what this country has been for all of us. I simply want to say, Bernie, that a better understand no way the facts related to my presence at this opening have taken a circuitous route to what you said this evening, largely because you couldn’t tell your wife no without using me as an excuse.
00:31:09:21 – 00:31:27:00
But truly, I am deeply honored to be here this afternoon because in a very real sense, this is part of the message of what we have been carrying to Barbados and to Barbadians. We are a small country. I wish we.
00:31:27:00 – 00:32:04:24
More land, believe you me. But we have a lot of ocean. But the land that we have can be better and more effectively utilized and repurposed to allow us to meet the times in which we live more effectively. And there can be no better example than taking an asset that was first opened 350 years ago this year. This factory, the records show, goes back to 1674.
00:32:04:27 – 00:32:56:22
And with respect to its name, goes back to 1695 with respect to John Hinman, who took possession of it. But he took possession of a working factory. And I say this because there are just two or three short things that I want us to focus on this evening. One is the repurposing of our assets with respect to not just our sugar factories and our plantations, but a number of assets across this country, because the confluence of time, the passage of time will demand of us on is limited land space, a rethinking and a repurposing of much of what we do.
00:32:56:24 – 00:33:31:16
I say so conscious that across the country also are a number of old properties for residential purposes that can also be repurposed in a way that we have not yet given sufficient thought to respect to plantations. We have seen some people open up into international business companies on plantation territory without reference to the limitations of the geographical space of our business, but using it as a domicile from which to engage the world.
00:33:31:19 – 00:34:02:17
We see now here what is possible creating a platform for so many small business people, so many entrepreneurs, so many craft people who, without the heavy traffic that will pass through here, would just be marginal with respect to their ability to sell. So we thank you, Bernie, for having the vision, you and your boys, for having this vision of seeing that this could be a market that would allow many, many, many small people to come together.
00:34:02:19 – 00:34:40:15
You know, I am a famous believer and many hands make late work. I wasn’t thinking of you and your children when you thought and said it, but clearly you felt that we to even if belatedly so. The bottom line, however, is the second point is this. If you look around this market, I’ve taken careful note that your revenue is not come in purely from those small business people whose income may ebb and flow, but your revenue is also coming in from commercial rental and from residential rental.
00:34:40:18 – 00:35:09:03
And it tells the story of our business. And I want us to think about it more because in a very real sense, your parent company and a few others were able to weather the lost decade because of your export of capital from this nation. We are small. I don’t need to remind us of that. And one of the problems that we continue to face is that we will never have scale in that particular area easily.
00:35:09:05 – 00:35:37:28
Tourism is the closest that we will come to it in all of its many facets. But the reality is that we are going to have to recognize that we can no longer only expect to earn our living from this rot. And when we earn a living from this rot, more likely than not, it is going to be mixed income, a combination of commercial, a combination of residential, a combination of tourism.
00:35:38:00 – 00:36:03:06
And we kind of knew that from as far back as 2007 when we began to see that most tourism investments in this country, because of the increased costs of doing business and the increased costs of construction. Let us confront these facts. The increased costs of telecommunications, the increased costs of almost every commodity. Because of our smallness, the infrastructure remains the same.
00:36:03:08 – 00:36:31:25
But the payback is limited because of the smaller population from which to pay back what you have invested. We realized from as far back as 2007 that most hotel properties in this country would need some mix of residential component in order for persons to be able to get a return on investment that is decent. We are seeing it now again, with respect to our costs being higher in construction and other areas of activity.
00:36:31:28 – 00:36:57:11
Telecoms, as I said, and other areas that it should not be, but because the package called by Barbados has that no we know decline in population. It means that if people are trying to maintain the quality of life and the dividends that they want to maintain, they are going to be hard pressed to do so. On a population size that is as small as ours are declining.
00:36:57:13 – 00:37:19:05
And this is the come to Jesus moment for a lot of us, because we don’t like to be able to think that we need to open up more. But the reality is that our numbers, if we want to maintain the quality of life that we have, is going to depend on a combination. Yes, of opening, but equally as important of the export of capital.
00:37:19:08 – 00:37:46:06
Now, explain to me why a country who has the maturity in the tourism sector that we have of over seven decades is not seeing more export of brands and export of services and export of other attractions that we develop in the same way that we have seen other Caribbean countries master the art of exporting their brands and their product products in a meaningful way.
00:37:46:09 – 00:38:05:09
I believe that this country has that capacity, and even though there may have been one or two instances where it has not gone exactly as the investor had hoped. I like to call myself a Jimmy Cliff girl. You can get it if you really want, but you must try and try, Try and try. You will succeed at last.
00:38:05:11 – 00:38:32:06
This country has a distinguished history and a mature history in the tourism and hospitality sector. And the notion that we can only import brands rather than exporting brands is a matter that gravely disturbs me. I hope that the notion that you have been able to have here by passing capital and I keep making the point. Cash is not wealth.
00:38:32:09 – 00:39:02:16
When we start to pass it from generation to generation to generation, then we can start to speak about wealth creation in this country. And I pray that those of you who have seen it fit to pass it on from one generation to the next will recognize that you are duty not just in insurance, but in tourism needs to be export and capital and exporting it in a way that brings your knowledge, expertise and your capital to bring benefits ultimately back to this country.
00:39:02:19 – 00:39:37:22
That is why the CARICOM Single Market and Single Economy, as was established, to be able to make it easier for countries to be able to export capital and for human beings to move across the single market in order to ensure that size does not become a limiting factor in development in our countries. The last point that I would like to make relates to the fact that we have among us a level of creativity that is world class.
00:39:37:24 – 00:40:20:22
I was just very briefly in that war and I realized that we have to find a way of also creating a platform for those of you who have products that can be exported virtually, that can be promoted virtually so, and exported beyond these boundaries to be able to do so in a very fulsome and dedicated way. I hope that by creating this atmosphere where people can touch and taste and feel that we will be able to excite imagination to ensure that once again, in the same way that I ask our business people not to be limited by the small size of our island.
00:40:20:24 – 00:40:54:23
I ask our craftspeople not to be limited. I have asked the National Cultural Foundation, along with other entities and government, to create the platforms digitally that will allow for a digital marketplace of products for Barbados and for ultimately others from the region. Because the more we have on that digital marketplace, the more traffic comes to it and the greater the likelihood of persons to be able to buy and to be able to want to engage in a meaningful way.
00:40:54:26 – 00:41:19:19
I hope that therefore, to the small entrepreneurs that many of you will take, you make use of this when it is built up later this year because that is going to make a defining difference to your exposure and to your market capacity. So, my friends, this is not an environment for long speeches. This is not an environment for politicking of any type.
00:41:19:21 – 00:41:50:02
In fact, I hope and pray that many of us will come to see this as a place of mini retreats and refuge from the maddening sounds of the rest of the world. I am conscious all the time of how blessed we are in this country and how much we have to give thanks for. But the ability to come and to retreat in a place like this in these bucolic surroundings, as I said, is truly a blessing.
00:41:50:05 – 00:42:15:01
I want to thank you and your family for having the vision and for taking the risk and to make this last point. And I’ll make it again on Monday in the budget. Our government has gone as far as we can go, and the difference in where our business school is now is the extent to which buildings are prepared to take risk in their own country.
00:42:15:03 – 00:42:42:21
The difference in where we go depends no on the extent to which Barbadians are prepared to take risk in their own country. Keeping money on a bank account with minimal returns and I’m not going after the banks cannot be the way to development and that the way to development has to be an investment in productive activities and assets.
00:42:42:23 – 00:43:09:20
This is the kind of example that will make a difference to the growth potential of this country. If we want to go to 4 to 5% growth as opposed then to 2 to 2 and a half in the medium to long term, then it means that Barbadians must invest billions, must invest in their own country. This is an example of that on Monday at other about other investments.
00:43:09:20 – 00:43:33:27
But for now I speak to this and I pray that those of you are in the tourism and hospitality sector will recognize and spread the word that there is nothing worse than for people to come to a beautiful country and to sit don’t have nothing to do when the day comes that you can only stay in the sea for so long and you certainly can only eat at the same places for so long.
00:43:33:29 – 00:44:03:01
And at some point people want variety and they want opportunity. This expands the opportunity that Barbados has to offer to those who visit. And equally, as you’ve learned, to those who live here, who also want to be afforded the opportunity of knowing what is available out there and how best they can engage and work with our craftspeople and our creatives in order to be able to give themselves more opportunity and more enjoyment.
00:44:03:07 – 00:44:29:18
So, my friends, I hope that this will be a place not just for the few, but for the many, as a refuge, as a place of entertainment, as a place to add value, as a place to encourage creativity. And if that happens as it is happening, I hope that this will be a catalyst for the rest of you who are nervous and want to know that Barbados is truly moving again.
00:44:29:20 – 00:44:45:07
We are. Get on board, because we can make a difference in spite of all that is happening around us in the world. Thank you and good luck. God Bless.