St. Lucia Simply Beautiful

I noted a bit of interesting news in Caribbean 360 In The Press, 8/5/12 “State Department launches $100,000 business competition to spur jobs in the Caribbean through partnerships with members of the Caribbean diaspora living the U.S., Canada and the U.K.” This programme will encourage joint venture relationship. In past articles I drew my readers’ attention to such programmes. I am firmly convinced that this is one sure way of injecting new business ideas, especially in the services sector. Let us open the door to making St. Lucia an outstanding destination for business and pleasure.

The Shepherding Model has its genesis in dialogue with the stakeholders; it is focused on hand holding, dynamic interactive dialogue, experiential training and anecdotal exchanges; it is enterprise specific; it promises to mitigate the risk of business failure on an enterprise by enterprise basis by adopting the 25 cell Management of Business Matrix™ approach.

This week, we will look at the VAT readiness checklist which can assist businesses in determining their level of readiness for VAT implementation. The list is not at all exhaustive but provides some guidelines of some of the issues which businesses should be looking at.

Value Added Tax (VAT) will be very much a part of the Budget and it is very likely that we are stuck with it. There are many among us who wish it would never happen but there are certain things in life that must come to pass, it is just a matter of time. The time for VAT in St. Lucia seems to have arrived. What is important is going forward. I feel the Budget will have something for everyone. Select your area and go for it. The test in the end will be how many new ideas were translated into productive, high profit yielding ventures. I must emphasise the point that it will take government’s invention in most cases to ensure successful outcomes.

There are many non-fossil fuel alternative sources of supply that Barbados can consider as options. They include Biomass cogeneration, Wind, Solar, Waste to energy incineration, Combined heat and power, Imported power, Landfill capping, Wave, Tidal, OTEC, Fuel cells and Nuclear.

We have established that on the one hand, the business life cycle can be intrinsically much longer than that of the human being but on the other hand the increasing failure rate is the real problem. How can we address this? Well, of course the answer is the CBET Shepherding Model which has been tested over the last three years.

I am at the stage of life when funerals come fast and frequently. Before one’s parents would represent the family at funerals but that is no longer the case. Indeed, I now find myself, at an alarmingly increasingly rate, attending funerals of persons younger than myself.

The Government of St. Lucia recently announced the introduction of VAT on September 1, 2012. This announcement did not come as a surprise to most business development watchers in St. Lucia and around the OCES. St. Lucia remains the only OECS state which has not introduced the VAT and with the pressure mounting from the international financial organizations, it was only a matter of time for the VAT to be introduced here, irrespective of the party in power.

If history is to be our guide, it is safe to assume that the VAT will be implemented, come September 1 and with only four months to go, businesses and organizations may want to begin to prepare for that magic date. Yes, there are many challenges to be faced with the implementation by September 1, but one must also remember that this talk about VAT being implemented in St. Lucia has been around for a few years and with an economy which is not doing so well and international lenders who are insisting on tax reform as a condition for receiving assistance which may get the country out of the recession, there is more to gain by embracing the opportunities which September 1 can bring, rather than to focus mainly on the challenges ahead.

Vieux Fort is really the Frontier of happiness and prosperity. It is taking shape before our very eyes. It is my hope that overseas visitors and residents visiting the South during the season of Jazz will take time off the mix pleasure with business so that they can make informed decisions about investing in the area.