Mia Mottley, Deputy Prime Minister of Barbados. - File

China is offering half a billion dollars to Chinese private sector companies as incentive to expand their footprints to the Caribbean, a development one senior official described as a lucrative opportunity to be exploited for the region.

Barbados Deputy Prime Minister Mia Mottley, just back from the Trade Cooperation Forum Ministerial Conference in China, said Beijing's US$500 million to Chinese businesses to invest in the region could be a tremendous fillip to Caribbean economies.

"This is a significant pool of resources and clearly it can constitute a package of foreign direct investments into the Caribbean and we are essentially talking of CARICOM countries, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

"In particular for Barbados, because of the China-Barbados double taxation agreement, we believe that we have a further opportunity to target many of these investments to domicile out of Barbados so that even if the investment is not specifically for activity in Barbados that we can get them to domicile here so that we can get additional economic benefits," she said.

The Deputy Prime Minister said fears of Chinese countries importing their own labour standards into regional countries should not arise if Caribbean countries established clear guidelines.

"In Barbados we are clear that once you come into this market that you must adhere to the labour laws and labour standards and the cores and culture that attaches itself to this job market; on this there is no room for accommodation," she added.

Noting that China and CARICOM had also agreed to deepen cooperation in trade, tourism and agriculture, the Minister of Economic Affairs and Development said tourism business from China could become another lucrative avenue for the region.

There are 34 million Chinese people who travelled last year and it is anticipated that by 2020 the numbers will grow to 100 million.

"Clearly the geographical distance is a challenge as well as the language but what is clear is that there are opportunities," Mottley added.

She said with China's advanced technology in agriculture, the region could benefit in areas such as crop planting and farming, agriculture equipment production and agriculture technology exchanges.

- CMC