Any companies wanting to leave Bermuda because of difficulties with Government legislation will be welcomed with open arms by Barbados, according to one of the island's representatives.

Alastair Dent, an assurance advisory business services partner at Ernst and Young is a member of the team representing Barbados at the Risk Insurance Management Society annual conference being held in San Francisco this year.

He said that while his island had lost XL Capital to Bermuda, the company had come on in leaps and bounds in the last decade as a place to do business.

Speaking about the decision of investment manager STW to pull out of Bermuda, and the outspoken remarks made by its chief executive on the Bermuda Government, he said: "We would be glad to take on any businesses that want to shut down in Bermuda.'' Mr. Dent is part of a delegation of 20 members from the island that are manning a stand promoting doing business in Barbados.

Mr. Dent said that Barbados specialised in two kinds of companies -- exempt companies and qualifying insurance companies. The status of qualifying insurance companies has been recently set up to specifically set up to attract insurance companies to the island.

There are currently about 330 companies on the island, with only a handful so far set up as qualifying insurance companies.

Mr. Dent said that while Barbados did not have the `branding' name for international business that Bermuda or the Cayman Islands had, the jurisdiction was gaining a reputation as a place to do business.

"I think at the moment Bermuda and the Cayman Islands have a better brand than us, but we have the advantage of being a lower cost jurisdiction to run and audit a company. Barbados is a much cheaper than Bermuda.

"Bermuda is perceived to have a good infrastructure and a well educated work force. But we have a big attraction for Canadian companies because of our tax treaty allows repartriation of profits into Canada tax free.'' He said that this tax agreement was the reason why the new rules about qualifying insurance companies had been set up. These companies are taxed 40 percent and then given a 93 percent tax credit, effectively leaving the companies with a 2.8 percent tax.

"There are quite a few top notch Canadian companies that have a presence in Barbados. And we are hoping to attract more business all the time. We are establishing ourselves as the place for e-commerce -- we are not doing so much as Cayman and Bermuda, but we are not far behind.

"We are getting better and better and will soon catch up.'' The Barbados contingent includes the country's Minister of International Trade, Reginald Farley and Ian Carrington, the Supervisor of Insurance, -- a minister at the Ministry of Finance.

BUSINESS BUC