The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) chief executive said yesterday it was seeking private sector feedback on the “most pressing issues” concerning the ‘ease of doing business’ in the Bahamas.

Edison Sumner said the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ survey, launched yesterday, would serve as the “springboard” for the national conclave of Chambers’ agenda next month.

He told Tribune Business that the Chamber is hoping its membership, and businesses that may not be members, respond to the survey, which highlights issues such as starting a business, taxation, energy, labour and infrastructure development.

“We decided to focus on the ease of doing business,” Mr Sumner said. “We put the survey out there so we could get more feedback from the general business community on what they consider the key areas of concern.

“We put out five general areas to find out how businesses rank those areas, the challenges in those areas, and also to see if there are other areas that businesses are concerned about.”

The BCCEC will be hosting its fourth annual National Conclave of Chambers of Commerce on May 16-17 which will focus on the ‘ease of doing business’.

“While we believe we know what some of the challenges are, we don’t want to take the input of the business community for granted, and so we really want to get as many responses as we can,” Mr Sumner said.

“We are going to use the survey as a springboard to set the final agenda for the conclave, where we will release the survey results. We will have a roundtable discussion on the issues in the survey, and we are going to be putting together workable solutions. We want to see how we can improve the ease of doing business in the country in a real way.”