The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Grand Bahama micro, small and medium-sized firm (MSMEs) have to-date attracted just under four percent of the $50m made available to the sector this fiscal year, a Cabinet minister said yesterday.

Kwasi Thompson, minister of state for finance, told the Grand Bahama Business Outlook: “The government has allocated some $50m for the Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) this budget year alone. To-date some 192 businesses in Grand Bahama have benefited, representing a total of $1.8m being injected into MSMEs.

“More and more businesses have begun to shift to technology and digital-based services. Lessons from Hurricane Dorian, as well as the unprecedented onset of the pandemic, made this shift almost a necessity for our local businesses. The government has taken the position to encourage businesses to continue this trend as we aim to digitise our services and improve the ease of doing business and efficiency in our country.”

Describing small businesses as “the economic heart of our communities”, Mr Thompson added: “The success of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) keeps our islands alive. To use the Bahamian vernacular, ‘mom-and-pop shops’ help to keep food on the table and children in school for many Bahamian families.”

Gregory Laroda, the Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce’s president, told the same conference: “When we speak about rebounding, and rebounding better, as far as businesses are concerned you really have to be looking at digital transformation.

“Prior to Dorian, and prior to the pandemic, we did a lot of talking as it relates to digital transformation. Some of us opted to get into the race and try to improve our businesses, but others didn’t and were quite content with keeping funds to run their business under the same mattress with the funds that they used to run their households.”

Mr Laroda added that, as a consequence of Dorian and COVID-19, there remains a need to raise capital to rebound from these twin impacts and the “dire situation” Grand Bahama finds itself in. However, many companies have been unable to access credit from established financial institutions because they lack up-to-date financial information on past company performance.

“This highlighted the importance of taking a new approach to doing business, and we came to the realisation that we not only need to rebuild our businesses so that we can continue to provide needed goods and services to our customers here on the island, but we also needed to be more creative and progressive in our thinking,” Mr Laroda said.

“So Dorian actually signed all of us up to be participants in this race called the digital transformation. It’s no longer if we’re going to do it for our business in order to continue, but it’s how we’re going to do it. As far as the retail sectors are concerned, online shopping is here. It was here prior to Dorian and the pandemic, and it’s even here in a bigger way now.

“So in order to compete, we must not only rebound but we have to rebound stronger.”