Economy of Barbados
Since the island country's independence in 1966, the economy of Barbados has been transformed from a low-income economy dependent upon sugar production into a high-income economy based on tourism and the offshore sector. Barbados went into a deep recession in the 1990s after 3 years of steady decline brought on by fundamental macroeconomic imbalances. After a painful re-adjustment process, the economy began to grow again in 1993. Growth rates have averaged between 3%–5% since then. The country's three main economic drivers are: tourism, the international business sector, and foreign direct-investment. These are supported in part by Barbados operating as a service-driven economy and an international business centre. In June 2018 Barbados announced the default on its bonds, after revealing that its debt amounted to $7.5 billion (the fourth highest debt in debt-to-GDP ratio in the world). History Pre-independence Since the first settlement by the British in 1625, through history the economy of Barbados was primarily dependent on agriculture. It had been recorded that minus the marshes and gully regions, during the 1630s much of the desirable land had been deforested across the entire island. In the 1640s, Barbados shifted from small-scale mixed crop farming using indentured labor to large-scale sugar production, introduced by the Jewish community that immigrated to Barbados when exiled from Dutch Brazil. Land was divided into large estate-plantations, with a labor-force that was almost entirely made up of enslaved men and women. Sugar cane became the single best move for the Barbados economy at the time. Barbados soon had built so many windmills that the island had the second highest density of windmills per square mile in the world, after the Netherlands. For about the next 100 years Barbados remained the richest of all the European colonies in the Caribbean region due to sugar. The prosperity in the colony of Barbados remained regionally unmatched until sugar cane production caught up in geographically larger countries such as Jamaica and elsewhere. Despite being eclipsed by larger makers of sugar, Barbados continued to produce the crop well into the 20th century. While the emancipation of African slaves in the British Empire in 1833, nominally liberated the slaves, limited access to education and land kept the freed as a disenfranchised underclass. As such, emphasis began to be placed on increased labour rights as well as upward mobility and strong education to combat plantation living. During the 1920s, politicians in Barbados started a push for more self-government. As the 1940s–1950s rolled around, Barbados moved towards developing political ties with neighbouring Caribbean islands. By 1958 the West Indies Federation was proposed by the British government for Barbados and nine other Caribbean territories. The Federation was first led by the Premier of Barbados, however the experiment ended by 1962. Later, Barbados tried to negotiate several other unions with other islands, yet it became likely that Barbados needed to move on. Subsequently, the island peacefully negotiated its independence with the British Government and the island became independent at midnight on November 30th, 1966. Post-independence After