DON'T TOUCH the Barbados offshore business sector!

This is the message which opposition Member of Parliament Rawle Eastmond wants Barbadians to send to United States President-elect Barack Obama.

In the House of Assembly yesterday, the St James North Member of Parliament said Obama's statement that he would try to keep American investors at home constituted a threat to Barbados' offshore sector.

"It therefore means that through our Regional Negotiating Machinery and through our Ministry of Foreign Affairs we (must) meet with the president-elect to let him know the reality that justice requires that what we have ... is so outstanding that they would be advised not to trouble our offshore (sector)," Eastmond remarked.

He spoke after Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and International Business, Christopher Sinckler, told parliamentarians Barbados was bracing for another assault by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on its offshore business sector.

Eastmond said the time was "appropriate" to let the world know that Barbados is not a jurisdiction that allows money laundering and that has the appropriate systems of information.

The industrialised world should also be told that the offshore sector cannot be a threat to it "and that we will conduct our business in accordance with the highest possible prudential standards".

He called for a concerted effort to stop the talk abroad that the country "is very bureaucratic".

The former minister underlined the need for reducing the cost of local production and manufacturing, as well as delivery of services in tourism and for making greater use of technology in production.

He warned that if this did not happen Barbados could find its market flooded by cheap goods driven by technology abroad, with the possibility of reduced employment and output. (TY)