On October 1, 2024, Saint Lucia introduced its first-ever national minimum wage, set at $6.52 per hour or $1,131 per month. Designed to improve workers’ standard of living through fair and equitable compensation, the policy has also posed challenges for some employers. During a breakfast meeting hosted by the Saint Lucia Employers Federation (SLEF), business owners shared firsthand experiences of the wage’s impact while exploring potential solutions. Executive Director of SLEF, Cornelia Jn Baptiste, emphasized the importance of these discussions in addressing employer concerns.

It was a carnival atmosphere in the streets of Anse La Raye last week as the Anse La Raye Infant School staged a reading street parade, reimaging education and literacy in a different space. Principal at the school, Albert Joseph endorsed the event and the innovativeness of the teaching staff in making learning fun.

“What we are doing here we are bringing books to life. So it’s not about reading about characters in books but now they are actually here bringing those imaginary characters to life. We have five books that are being presented today, these are the sections and of course, the parents have gone all the way out to really make it a special day for the students.”

“My character is Turkey Lurky.” (Student from Anse La Raye)

“My character is Tinker Bell and I feel happy.” (Student from Anse La Raye)

The cute factor was on full display with students enjoying a carnival atmosphere much to the delight of onlookers from the Anse La Raye Community. 

“The story is about Cinderella at the Ball.”  (Student from Anse La Raye)

“I feel excited and wonderful because this activity we’re having right now; it feels so amazing.” (Student from Anse La Raye)

“It’s not just for fun but there is a learning aspect to it which is what education in essence should be.” (Kate Popo, Literacy Coordinator, Anse La Raye Infant School) 

Literacy Coordinator, Kate Popo said the activity lends itself to the current carnival season in Saint Lucia while reinforcing in the minds of students that everything can be used as a learning opportunity.

“So literacy should not just be kept within the four walls of the classroom and this year the reading month theme lends itself to taking reading and literacy out of the classroom. So the staff here, our team, each class selected a book and we decided to get the students into costumes portraying the book. What we have here today is a parade encouraging the community to read, to take literacy out of the classroom, and engage in reading online, reading newspapers, and just reading generally.   After this parade, we will get class presentations. Each class will present the book. So we have a fun day. A day filled with excitement for the students, I myself, I am really happy that we are doing this and I look forward to more activities such as this one.”

Grade Two Teacher at the Anse La Raye Infant School, Martina Raphael Poleon, encouraged members of the community to support the reading pageant on June 30^th.

“We want to bring back the togetherness, the love, the attention, the affection because it takes a village to raise a child. So we have activities like this to bring the community back together.”

The reading carnival was supported by the pewees, senior students, and adults of the community.

“They just had a reading carnival for reading month which was amazing! I think it’s a great initiative that they’re doing to get the community involved, the students onboard and the parents, thank you for your support, and continue to do the great work that you’re doing.” (Catherine, Supporter of the Reading Carnival)

“I witnessed some great activity out there. It’s nice to see that kids are promoting reading month. It’s something good for the community and I hope that the message was well taken and I think that it’s going to be something good for the future.” (Catherine, Supporter of the Reading Carnival)

“There are many innovative ideas that have already come to mind for next year and I am very grateful for the teachers, the staff of course and off course the Literacy Coordinator who has made this come to life and made it a wonderful success today.” (Albert Joseph, Principal)

“Reading is fun!” (Students at the Reading Carnival)

The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council (NCPC) has achieved another milestone toward fully implementing the Collateral Registry. The Collateral Registry supports the recently passed Security Interest in Movable Properties Act. Economist and Project Leader at the NCPC, Sharma Mathurin said this project is now halfway through implementation with a formal launch scheduled for the latter part of this year.

“We have to remember why we are implementing and that is to decrease the cost of access to financing and to ease access to financing, particularly for micro and small businesses. And, of course, it will have positive externalities for other stakeholders for example the general public. So if you have a valuable asset and you want to use it to apply for a loan, the positive externalities of this project also apply to you.”

Stakeholders and end users recently participated in a week-long, hands-on training and consultation session on the novel Collateral Registry System and the Security Interest in Movable Properties Act. The sessions brought together professionals from both the legal and financial sectors who were taught the navigational tools within the platform to successfully complete transactions on the Collateral Registry.

“It’s a very interactive session, very hands-on, and the system, the software is very user friendly. I think it gives the advantage that everybody now has greater access to being able to do this.” Shirlan Louis, Credit Administration Department, Bank of Saint Lucia.

“With this software the whole registration process, for me, I think is going to be seamless, more efficient, more accurate, and of course, cost-effective for the customers out there. So all in all I think it’s a very good initiative. I am looking forward to working with it and I know my colleagues will be excited to work with something like that.”  Solomon Emmanuel, Senior Manager, Corporate Banking, First National Bank Saint Lucia Ltd.  

The Collateral Registry system will be based at and managed by the High Court.

“We also had training sessions with the High Court Staff to prepare them for the coming of this Collateral Registry.  They will be the host of this system and so they did work with the vendor in terms of learning the different activities that they can be performed within this system.”

 The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) have partnered with the NCPC from project inception.  Senior Operation Officer with the IFC, John Wilson, observed that the Security Interest in Movable Properties Act was met with both excitement and apprehension by stakeholders due to the significant amendments to the previous reform.  

“There is a concern about the steps that the banks have to take to basically be ready to implement the new system. The legal framework itself now that the registry is launched in a couple of months has the opportunity to provide some guidance in terms of what is expected of financial institutions from the act and the regulatory and the registry standpoint. Part of the session today aimed to assist in that transition from the previous system which was a mixed bag of different acts, legal mechanisms, and legal products into a uniform or cohesive product, a single registration system.  So I think there is enthusiasm and acceptance that will be extremely beneficial to financial institutions. But that transition, how do you go from the old way of doing things to the new way of doing things has been one of the concerns that had been expressed and I think that this was one of the principal objectives of this session today.”

He said the way forward post the launch is to work with financial institutions to innovate credit products that use new types of collateral that engage in a more sustainable and inclusive manner with those who have not had traditional collateral to offer.  Saint Lucia is the first in the OECS Region to establish a Collateral Registry.

“When you are successful at implementing it grabs the attention of so many other persons not only in Saint Lucia but throughout the region and so this project initially started with only Saint Lucia in mind and we got the attention from the World Bank, from the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and from other regional agencies to replicate this project throughout the region.”     

The NCPC will roll out a full PR and marketing campaign for the launch phase of this project scheduled for September 2023.

Saint Lucia’s Inland Revenue Department (IRD) and CARICOM, in association with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank Group, conducted a four-day regional workshop on ‘Foundational Transfer Pricing.’   The training workshop brought together Technical Tax Administration and Ministry of Finance officials from the Caribbean to learn the underlying transfer pricing principles and discuss potential legislative and administrative considerations to address transfer pricing.

Tax Advisor with the OECD and Workshop facilitator, Diego Gongalez remarked that transfer pricing tackles tax evasion. He added that countries who have implemented the measure noticed evasion levels reduce and collection levels increase. 

“What most multi-national companies do is tax evasion, tax avoidance, and avoidance is making sure that they can move around the gaps the legislation has in different jurisdictions for their benefit.  So they’re not doing anything illegal but it hitting really hard the coffers of the developing countries.”

The knowledge sharing and case studies from this workshop aim to build the capacity of regional and local participants to identify and close gaps in existing legislation and help formulate new transfer pricing legislation.  Comptroller at the Inland Revenue Department, Marcia Vite says this training will build on prior knowledge to ultimately improve tax collection.  

“We have no specific legislation to deal with transfer pricing. However, our income tax act does have an element of it and therefore it is being practiced already. We want to delve deeper into it to have more understanding because you would understand that there would be new staff coming on and persons would have to continue that regime of understanding different aspects of taxation, transfer pricing being one very important aspect.”

In endorsing the workshop, Permanent Secretary in the Department of Finance, Francis Fontenelle stressed that though transfer pricing in itself is not a bad practice, it can, however, be used inappropriately, especially with the collection of taxes.

“Saint Lucia and many of the jurisdictions represented here today have a significant number of companies that are part of conglomerates which have multi-national companies. As such there is scope for the use of transfer pricing to inappropriately influence profits declared whether it be in Saint Lucia, in your jurisdiction, or otherwise. These transfer pricing risks remain and there is a need to not only build capacity but also an appropriate compliance framework in an ever-evolving transfer pricing environment.”

Francis added that a more robust transfer pricing framework coupled with enhanced capacity-building exercises will lead to greater synchronization of transfer pricing policy. This he said should ultimately lead to higher tax compliance and tax revenues.   Sabine Wahl from the World Bank Group was the other Tax Consultant facilitating the workshop. The Foundational Transfer Pricing Workshop for the Caribbean was held at the Finance Administrative Centre in Pointe Seraphine from Tuesday 13^th – 16^th June 2023.

Covid-19 has created what has aptly been described as the “new normal” causing a blended approach to be adopted by all sectors in society. This has caused the rapid penetration and dependence on ICT for communication, business activity, education, and the list goes on.

This rapid dependence on ICT has undoubtedly widened the digital divide particularly for small island developing states like Saint Lucia with many not having access to technology or appropriate technology to seamlessly navigate this new normal.

Reducing the digital divide is projected as one sure way of increasing Saint Lucia’s competitiveness and sustaining economic development.

View the discussion on reducing the digital divide held during Productivity Awareness Week in October 2021.

Communication has a vital role to play in fueling economic growth. A well-coordinated strategized and funded national information communication roadmap for Saint Lucia is vital to the economic health of the country.

View the discussion on the vital role of communications in economic growth hed during Productivity Awareness Week in October 2021.

The Youth economy is viewed as a catalyst for economic growth and national development and is expected to turn the ideas, dreams and hobbies of the youth into viable, sustainable, business opportunities.

View the discussion on the Youth Economy held during Productivity Awareness Week, October 2021.

View the discussion re: the Love Saint Lucia Campaign, “The possibilities for economic growth and job creation,” held during Productivity Awareness Week in October 2021.

Saint Lucia is characterized by a youthful population. This means that thousands of young persons are entering the labour force yearly. As such, job opportunities for young persons are very limited and this has resulted in a youth unemployment rate of 38.4% in 2016. The answer to this crisis lies within entrepreneurship. Young persons are usually creative in their ways of thinking and solving problems. As such, this creativity can be used to create business opportunities for themselves as well as creating jobs for other young persons.

In order to start and operate a business, funding is essential. Securing financing, however, in this tough economic climate can be challenging due to the high risk levels involved in starting and operating a business. More importantly, entrepreneurs are required to have collateral in order to borrow. This, while proving to be problematic for potential young entrepreneurs should not be a deterrent.

Many successful business owners have started their business from scratch with little funding. For example, British business man- Chris Dawson has shown that selling goods from a suitcase can lead to big things, founding The Range (homeware) in 1988. His chain of discount stores made £88 million profit in 2014. Entrepreneurs are usually creative in nature and can come up with innovative ways of funding their ventures.

Young entrepreneurs will have great business ideas but because of lack of capital are discouraged to execute the plan. It is important to note that if the business idea is not comprehensive and well thought out, no amount of money will turn it into a success. Therefore, if an entrepreneur has a business idea but may have little money, that should not be a constraint to starting the business. This may require long days with little sleep. However, those who want it bad enough will make it happen.

The following are some tips on how to start your business with little funds:

Tell everyone about the business. Inform everyone that you know about your business including friends, family, business contacts and past colleagues. Call, send emails, attend free networking sessions also make the business known on social media. Friends and family can help you spread the word, and past colleagues can introduce your company to their professional contacts as well. This type of grass roots marketing can introduce your business to a much larger audience.

Get ready to work hard. When you are starting a business with little to no capital, you must be prepared to dedicate everything that you have into making the business a success. This involves cold calling, handling customer support, dealing with billing and accounting and other parts of the business. You may have to wear many hearts in order to start off the business.

Look for strategic investors. Strategic investors are the best type of investors you could find for your business because their interests align with your start up.  In assisting your business, there is some benefit to their business. For example, a hair dresser with a huge salon may give a nail technician some space to set up, either at a concessionary rate or free of charge. This is a way of marketing the hair salon to the clients of the nail technician and thus helping to expand the business.

Start at home.  Bill Gates successfully started his business in his garage. Depending on the line of business, a great way to save money is to run your business in a location that will not require you to pay extra rent. It will not look glamorous but will help you to get the job done without spending extra money.  In recent years, the Taiwanese government has been encouraging entrepreneurs to start businesses at home. This is a way of helping them decrease on their overheard costs which ensures the survival of the start-up business.

Start part- time. If you will need a steady income to meet your financial obligations, it is therefore advisable to start the business as a part time venture. Do not quit the job until the part time business has a steady flow of customers and profits.

Although it is true that generous funding, a team of investors, or family with deep pockets can make starting a business venture easier, not having money should not be a deterrent. If you are confident that you have a product or service people want, don’t allow the lack of money to dissuade you from your business goals. By pivoting, grinding it out, getting creative, and differentiating yourself, you can bootstrap your way to a successful business.