The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business

Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas must strike a balance between “putting a spigot in that great wall” of foreign exchange control and not being “crowded out” by the outside world, a crowdfunding chief said yesterday.

D’Arcy Rahming Sr, ArawakX’s chief executive, speaking at the platform’s Ecosystem Virtual Conference, said it was seeking to flip The Bahamas’ financial model from the provision of so-called offshore services to as nearshore offering.

The latter, he explained, involves “adding value” to companies and individuals in the likes of the US, Canada and Latin America, thereby encouraging them to domicile in The Bahamas. Mr Rahming Sr said both current and former prime ministers, Philip Davis QC and Dr Hubert Minnis, understood this would require some easing of the restrictions on foreigners doing business here.

“Our financial services, which has declined, has been a matter of people using The Bahamas to move great portions of wealth here,” he explained. “Unfortunately, some of it involved hiding it from other countries just purely for tax purposes. We don’t even own that industry, yet we are considered to receive a black eye to our brand for it, and we call it an offshore financial centre.

“So at ArawakX we are talking about near shore. Nearshoring means that we add value to the peoples of the United States and the people of Canada, and the people of Latin America and people of the Caribbean. We add value by having an ecosystem here where people want to be here, where they have correct professional services and a nice safe place to live.”

Mr Rahming Sr continued: “We have the authority and the power to do it, and we’re doing it. This has been very well received. I’ve had talks with both the former and present Prime Ministers, and both have understood that this is a necessary step in the evolution of our people.

“We need something to put a spigot in that great wall around us and allow certain things to come in, and provide value for them and not be overwhelmed but, at the same time, not crowded out.

“There are tons of companies that are out there in the Caribbean, in our country and, of course, in the United States of America that are not receiving adequate financing because they don’t fit the ‘old boys network’ type of category.”