Examine the Reasons for the Decline of the Manufacturing Business in Barbados After 1980.
The nation of Barbados has historically been a nation that has had its economical focus on agriculture. Through the production of sugar cane and its by-products, Barbados for decades had a stable export, but due to both internal and external factors, they needed to find an alternative to this agricultural economy as it was failing. As a result of this need, the Caribbean and Barbados began the process of industrialisation in the 1960’s and in doing so, created a successful manufacturing sector. While this sector was initially very successful, issues and cracks began to form and by the 1980’s the manufacturing business of Barbados was in decline. In this essay, I will analyse four reasons for why this manufacturing industry failed so abruptly. The ongoing economic recession of 1973 and a later global recession in 1992, the withdrawal of some of the manufacturing firms that came to Barbados, competition from inter-regional nations and the withdrawal of governmental support all helped to ensure the steady decline of the manufacturing business in Barbados after 1980. Before we discuss why the manufacturing businesses experienced a decline, we must understand the reasons why and how Barbados turned to them .As stated previously, Barbados was predominately an agriculturally based economy. In 1946, sugar cane accounted for 33% of the country’s GDP. This was the largest single entity in the economy and awhile it was proving successful, it was subject to the price fluctuations of the sugar market. This mono-crop economy was far too fickle to be considered the main bread winner for the nation. By the 1950’s and 1960’s the monarchy of sugar cane had lost most of its market dominance to tourism and manufacturing but while tourism seemed a stable and suitable monarch to take the major market share from sugar cane, but it to was prone to external market fluctuations. This meant that Barbados had to have another suitable and reliable sector to bear the brunt of the economic