Canadians ‘benefit too’

Barbados attracted $62 billion in Canadian investment last year – the most by any international financial centre.

But a leading Canadian international business professor has revealed new research showing that the long-standing investment love affair his countrymen have with Barbados is also producing substantial financial rewards and jobs back home.

As a result, Professor Walid Hejazi, who teaches at the University of Toronto, is advising the Canadian government against trying to recoup more taxes from businesses who have invested in Barbados, saying any such a move would be “incredibly naïve”.

Speaking yesterday at an international financial conference held at Hilton Barbados Resort by Invest Barbados in collaboration with the Central Bank, Hejazi said: “As a result of Canadian companies having access to Barbados as a conduit into the global economy, Canadian exports into the global economy are anywhere from $2.6 billion to $3.1 billion more than they would have been had Canadian companies not have access to Barbados.”