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I am satisfied that this engagement is necessary to ensure that we can share our vision in more detail and that we can learn from Barbadians the things they want to see addressed in the next decade.

But I will share with you nevertheless a few thoughts which I have as I seek to re-imagine our future.

The Barbados economy has been well shepherded for most of the past forty years, but past success no longer foretells future success…the world has changed.

It will no longer be enough for us as Barbadians to keep our house in order. We have to contend with the success of others. Hitherto we could focus on what was a problem locally and we could fix it and that would guarantee us some measure of success.

Today we have to be cognizant that we live in a world that is interdependent and where people have many choices as to where they can visit, invest, and with whom they can trade.

We must now contend with the success of other countries.

We must not only fix our own problems, but in order to maintain our quality of life we need to receive a share of international investment, tourists, and skills and we need to sell internationally our skills and so we must perform internationally.

For forty years we delivered 3-4% growth in economic activity and this was enough to sparkle in our neck of the woods. Some of our neighbours like Jamaica and Guyana stagnated over this period.

Neighbours in Latin America at times appeared to be either on the edge of social revolution or military intervention. Our levels of growth compared well to the large, developed economies of both hemispheres. Better than average growth allowed us to retain talent at home and attract investment.

But recently something has happened.

In the last few years emerging markets have shifted a couple gears. China and India, once desperately poor countries, now post 10% growth rates per year every year. Last year, a poor year for the global economy, a year when we did not grow at all, some 80 countries grew more than 5%, spread evenly across the world - 25 of these were in Africa.

We may question whether this growth is well distributed, but the point is when investors consider investing around the world, when talented professionals and managers consider which job to apply for, when our own people decide where their future lies, we compete with countries growing considerably faster than us. The world, is on the move in a way more sustainably and consistently than ever before.

Today our 3-4% growth remains above par within the Caribbean but is now below par relative to the rest of the world. This means three new things.

First, our image as a successful developing economy is being usurped. And the image of success yields success; it attracts successful people and successful investments.

Second, the image of dynamic, fast growing opportunities abroad will lure our youth and talent abroad.

Third, the example of other developing countries, of other small states, has redrawn the possible and demands that we re-imagine our future. We should no longer be content with chipping away at poverty, inequality and national development at a rate of 3% per year.

We should be aiming for 5 to 10% growth too. That kind of growth will provide the resources we need to offer affordable housing and health care, high-wage jobs and to invest in our environment.

STAY TUNED FOR PART 2 - TOMORROW
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