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CSME Offers Benefits To Young Entrepreneurs
Friday, December 9, 2005 The introduction of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) in January 2006, presents a world of opportunity for young entrepreneurs, according to Marcia Brandon, the general manager of the Barbados Youth in Business Trust (BYBT) and regional coordinator of the Caribbean youth in business trust initiative. “I think it’s a very good thing. I really think it will present a host of opportunities for young people who are eager enough to grasp them,” she disclosed. Brandon added that her organization has hosted a number of seminars in Barbados to keep her clients up-to-date with CSME implications. “One of the things I keep telling them is that entrepreneurs only see opportunities where everybody else sees problems. … devise some great plan, enhance (a product) and go out there and sell it. Nothing is there stopping young people from doing that.” Barbados was the first Caribbean country to implement the youth business brand based on a model conceptualized by the Prince of Wales in the 1980’s, as a solution to cure unemployment ills. The initiative is also used by 24 other countries including Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize and Guyana. Ms. Brandon is currently in St. Kitts doing some consultancy work. She has aggressively advocated a stronger push for more Caribbean countries to adopt youth entrepreneurship as a viable means to reduce unemployment. “I would really love to see all the Caribbean countries embrace youth entrepreneurship more seriously,” she stressed, quoting statistics that reveal 300 million youths worldwide want to start a business, but only 20 percent of them are successful due to financial and other bureaucratic constraints. “Its businesses that drive the economy and if we are not having businesses coming on stream and developing and teaching our young people to think that way, we’re not going to get very far.” Senior Youth Officer in the Department of Youth, Dave Connor, singled out financial institutions and challenged the executives to offer special concessionary assistance, such as low interest loans, to young persons wishing to establish businesses. Courtesy: http://www.caribbeannetnews.com |
