IDB report reveals that Caribbean companies need more innovation and productivity
17-05-23
An analysis using a comprehensive database and recent research sheds light on the opportunities and constraints for Caribbean businesses.
The report is part of the IDB's quarterly Caribbean Economy series.
According to a new report from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Caribbean governments should focus on policies that facilitate firms' efforts to innovate and improve productivity. Such policies should focus on the constraints expressed by entrepreneurs themselves, through surveys conducted in the Caribbean.
Reflections on Innovation and Productivity as Caribbean Enterprises Emerge from the Pandemic
addressed the question of whether the Caribbean would return to the long-term slow growth of the pre-pandemic period. To answer this, the Compete Caribbean Partnership Facility, a multi-donor private sector development programme funded by the IDB, the governments of the UK and Canada, and the Caribbean Development Bank, collected firm-level data from nearly 2,000 companies in 13 Caribbean countries.
The report includes a review of past performance in terms of economic growth and productivity. It then describes the Compete Caribbean data and summarises recent research papers analysing those data and research findings. Finally, the country sections draw on the Compete Caribbean database to describe the country-level challenges facing businesses in the Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.