BARBADOS-Barbados PM reiterates call for regional conglomerates to help Caribbean people survive.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has once again urged regional conglomerates to limit their profit margins and use her island’s Price Compact as a regional model to help Caribbean countries weather global economic shocks.

Addressing the opening of the BDS$46 million (One BDS$=US$0.50 cents) Massy Stores branch at Worthing, east of here on Monday night, Mottley reiterated a position she outlined in St. Lucia last month for regional private sector leaders and major conglomerates to accept lower profit margins on essential goods to ease the escalating cost of living across the Caribbean.

Mottley told the high-level meeting with Caribbean private sector leaders in Gros Islet that businesses should be prepared to accept lower profits on essential goods to help ease the cost of living.

She singled out Massy, saying there was “no basis” for the company to earn BDS$49 million in profit in Barbados. At the same time, middle-income families struggle to afford food, arguing that the Trinidad-based group could have made a profit of BDS$20 million instead, leaving BDS$29 million in consumers’ pockets.

As she addressed the opening of the new Massy facility, Mottley said regional cooperation was needed to protect consumers as inflation and geopolitical uncertainty continue to drive up costs and urged supermarkets to consider a 15 percent markup on a basket of essential goods, while allowing higher margins on non-essential items.

“The simple premise is not that you have no markup, but that you limit your markup to 15 percent,” she added, telling the ceremony that businesses could continue to make higher markups on goods that were optional, while ensuring that necessities remained within reach of ordinary households.

“As a country of 166 square miles, where national security and national stability matter, and where we do not have the luxury of creating a space for the haves and the have-nots…this country must guarantee people the ability to eat, to remain clean, and to remain capable of cleaning their environment to avoid public health crises.”

Massy officials at the event announced that before the end of the week, the company would reduce its markup on another 100 everyday items, including tuna, corned beef, rice, feminine sanitary products and diapers.

Mottley, in welcoming the announcement, said that more than half of the products covered by the previous compact’s framework remain cheaper than they were when the compact was introduced in July 2022.

“I am happy to say that even despite the passage of now four years and one month…more than half of them remain cheaper than they were in July 2022,” Mottley said, adding that the results should not be viewed solely as a Barbados success, but as an approach that could benefit the wider Caribbean.

“It is not sufficient for us to have practiced and done the Price Compact in Barbados and to have achieved the results that we have achieved in the last four years and believe that we should keep it to ourselves,” she said, noting continued uncertainty surrounding the war in the Middle East as an example of the volatility affecting global supply chains.

She told the ceremony that such uncertainty makes it difficult for shippers and suppliers to plan and can result in higher costs being built into prices.

Mottley called for a regional conversation, building on the discussions held in St. Lucia during the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) summit in July.

“If we can do that from where you stand as a regional multinational corporation that is delivering for people and where I stand as the lead prime minister for CARICOM Single Market and Economy…then I believe that the people of the region can benefit from the value which we add,” Mottley said, adding that the objective is to ensure Caribbean families could continue accessing food, water and sanitation essentials without being overwhelmed by rising prices.