BERT’s squeeze is hurting the already ailing garment manufacturing sector and threatening the few hundred jobs still remaining in an unexpected way.
Sunday Sun investigations revealed that the need to tighten up on spending by state-owned enterprises because of the adoption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) programme, has led some of these organisations to look overseas for uniform suppliers to cut costs.
This has led to greater imports of uniforms from within CARICOM and as far away as China, at the expense of local manufacturers.
So serious has the situation become that two leading manufacturers, Christopher Hadchity, of Yankee Garments and Dean Straker, of Barbados Industries Ltd, are calling on the Mia Amor Mottley administration to urgently address the issue. (SP)
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