page_title: Barbados
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Barbados / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: A view of The Sandy Lane Resort from the Water Outside The Hotel
context_page_description: Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of North America. It is 34 kilometres in length and up to 23 km in width, covering an area of 432 km². It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 km east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, Barbados is east of the Windwards, part of the Lesser Antilles, roughly at 13°N of the equator. It is about 168 km east of both the countries of Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and 180 km south-east of Martinique and 400 km north-east of Trinidad and Tobago. Barbados is outside the principal Atlantic hurricane belt. Its capital and largest city is Bridgetown.
  Inhabited by Kalinago people since the 13th century, and prior to that by other Amerindians, Barbados was visited by Spanish navigators in the late 15th century and claimed for the Spanish Crown. It first appeared on a Spanish map in 1511.
context_section_description: Barbados is the 53rd richest country in the world in terms of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita, has a well-developed mixed economy, and a moderately high standard of living. According to the World Bank, Barbados is classified as being in its 66 top high income economies of the world. Despite this, a 2012 self-study in conjunction with the Caribbean Development Bank revealed 20% of Barbadians live in poverty, and nearly 10% cannot meet their basic daily food needs.
  Historically, the economy of Barbados had been dependent on sugarcane cultivation and related activities, but since the late 1970s and early 1980s it has diversified into the manufacturing and tourism sectors. Offshore finance and information services have become important foreign exchange earners, and there is a healthy light manufacturing sector. Since the 1990s the Barbados Government has been seen as business-friendly and economically sound. The island saw a construction boom, with the development and redevelopment of hotels, office complexes, and homes, partly due to the staging of the 2007 Cricket World Cup. This slowed during the 2008 to 2012 world economic crisis and the recession.
  There was a strong economy between 1999 and 2000, and the economy went into the recession in 2001 and 2002 due to slowdowns in tourism, consumer spending and the impact of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States and the 7 July 2005 London bombings in the United Kingdom, but rebounded in 2003 and has shown growth since 2004 and continued right through to 2007 and 2008. The economy went into recession again from 2008 to 2013 before showing growth from 2014 to 2017 and then it went back down to another recession from 2017 to 2019. In 2019, after 11 and during the world economic crisis and the recession, there were 23 downgrades by both Standard & Poor's and Moody's in 2016, 2017 and 2018 that had the economy going down to the recession. Then in 2018 and 2019, there was yet another economic recession until 2020. From 1 January to 31 March 2020 the economy had started to grow, but it was too late when the economy went back down due to the global COVID-19 economic recession after 3 more upgrades by Standard & Poor's and Moody's in December, 2019. Traditional trading partners include Canada, the Caribbean Community (especially Trinidad and Tobago), the United Kingdom and the United States. Recent government administrations have continued efforts to reduce unemployment, encourage foreign direct investment, and privatise remaining state-owned enterprises. Unemployment was reduced to 10.7% in 2003. However, it has since increased to 11.9% in second quarter, 2015.
  The European Union is assisting Barbados with a €10 million program of modernisation of the country's International Business and Financial Services Sector.
  Barbados maintains the third largest stock exchange in the Caribbean region. As of 2009, officials at the stock exchange were investigating the possibility of augmenting the local exchange with an International Securities Market (ISM) venture.
caption: Sandy Lane is a leading resort in Barbados's tourism sector.
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