Bahamas country

Bahamas country

1.0 General Information

The Bahamas is a nation within the Lucayan Archipelago within the West Indies. The state had grown politically, economically, and socially with a significant milestone being experienced in the early 1950s when women were politically empowered. Besides, women did not obtain the franchise until 1962; such considerable changes have greatly enhanced educational opportunities and improved the nation’s both social and economic grounds. The nation’s capital Nassau lies almost 310 km off the southern coast of Florida. The country shares maritime borders with the United States, Haiti, Cuba, and Caicos and Turks Islands. With a total land area covering 13, 943km2, the island chains almost the size of Montenegro or slightly smaller compared to Connecticut. Bahamas population as of 2019 was just 389,000, with critical cities being, Nassau 266, 940, Freeport with a population of 47,085, West End,13,004, Coopers Town,9,069, Marsh Harbor, 5,728 and Freetown 4,222. The country is also very religious, having suggested as one of the countries with the highest number of churches per capita, both embracing Anglicans, Seventh Day Adventists, Methodists, and Catholics. The country’s ethnic groups comprise of 12%whites, 3% Hispanic and Asian and 85%blacks. On the other hand, the country has an excellent infrastructure with 41 airports, good railways, road, and waterways networks. Regardless of its stable infrastructures, the country experiences other environmental and natural hazards such as waste disposal, water pollution, reef decay,

2.0 Political and Economic Information

2.1 Political Analysis

Bahamas nation is a constitutional parliamentary democracy and a commonwealth realm. The country’s head of state is Queen Elizabeth 11, who is represented by the Bahamian governor-general, who primarily makes a decision from the prime minister and the cabinet. The government’s head is the prime ministers, who are always the leader of the majority party in parliament. The state’s bicameral parliament comprises of an appointed Senate and elected assembly. Trough the government’s support, property registration has been eased .the independent legal systems are based on British common law, and contracts are enforced. Contrary to the government’s stability, the country’s judicial process is inefficient, and rials are, in most instances, delayed. Besides, there has been an increased of retaliatory crimes against the alleged perpetrators and witnesses with money laundering and corruption cases being one of the significant issues that face all levels of the government has recorded a corruption index of 64% but it’s still the least rate having ranked at 29 least corrupt nation in 180 countries.

2.2 Economic Analysis

Bahamas’ economic freedom is at 62.9%, a factor that makes it one of the countries with an economy at 76^th freest in the world’s 2019 Index. Economically, the state has been ranked 15^th among Americas regions of 32 nations, and its overall score is relatively above the regional and world average. In support of its economic state, the government’s primary priority is to reduce the country’s fiscal deficit. As a way of stimulating the country’s economic level, the government has simplified its business licensing procedures; it has further streamlined its procurement processes and business-related immigration. The government has also taken critical steps towards fostering the development of SMEs and encouraging local investment. The country’s private sector has, however, been restricted within a weak rule of law that lingers protectionism, massive subsidies to state-owned enter ices, and a bloated and slow-moving bureaucracy (2019 Index of Economic Freedom, 2020). Nevertheless, the overall regulatory structure and systems of the country’s economic regulations are very conducive to any local and foreign entrepreneur activity, and there are relatively no entities or individual or corporate income taxes.

Valuing other economic factors, the country’s tax burden is at 97.3%, investment freedom at 50%, trade freedom at47.8%, monetary freedom at 78.1%, labor freedom 67.5%, and business freedom at 68.5%. Over the year, the country’s economic status has been growing, recording a GDP of $11.6 billion, reflecting a percentage growth rate of 1.3%, with a 0.7% 5-year compound annual growth and recording value of $31,139 per capita. Bahamas’ unemployment rate is 12.6%, with an inflation rate of 1.45 and FDI inflows of $927.7 million (WORLD FACTBOOK, 2020). From the information, it would be reflected that the country has made the process of starting any business relatively easy by merging the key processes of registering for any business license and registering for the value-added tax. On the other hand, the labor market is also relatively flexible. However, the current labor codes are not enforced efficiently (Kushnir, 2019). Subsidies to state-owned corporates such as Bahamas Air, which has, for a long time, has been recording annual losses for two decades, continue to be a drag on government finances. The country’s combined imports and exports are equal to 75.5% of its GDP. Besides, the Bahamas’ technological sectors and banking sectors have been stable, greatly supporting the economic sectors.

Regardless of the country’s promising economic status, since 2017’s election that saw Prime Minister Hubert Minnis of the Free National Movement election, the country has had challenges within its economic growth, increased rate of unemployment, high household indebtedness and the costs of ongoing repairs have made necessary by the current hurricanes. The country’s tourism sector accounts for much of the country’s GDP, contributing 60%% of the total GDP. International banking, financial services, and investment management have also been considered substantial to the country’s recorded GDP. Before 2019 Bahamas was the only state from the Western Hemisphere out of WTO, and the current Prime Minister has campaigned for the reactivation of the country’s full membership factor that also put the country among the other member countries under World Trade Organization to lower their tariffs to member states. As much as has been done to enhance the country’s economic status, the country’s proximity to the US has made it a transshipment point for human trafficking and illegal drugs.

3.0 Cultural Information

Bahamian culture is defined as an amalgam of its European and African heritages. The country’s population largely uses English as the common language; however, a smattering of other Caribbean languages is as well-spoken. The country’s culture has been highly influenced by the Americans and the Caribbean. According to the country’s culture, family life has always been considered very important; however, according to Barlas (2015), analysis in the 20^th century, formal marriages has declined. High number of households are headed by single mothers . Before 1940s, traditionally, the culture identified women as home wives who were tended to be staying at home. Different from the traditional forms of role separation, women and men are have had equal opportunities in the workplace, but men are always considered as the head of the family, with wives serving as helpers and take most of the basic core roles in the family’s activities. The families have also embraced the culture of providing good education to their children factor that has seen an increased culture that supports education.

Moreover, by the late 20^th century, the country’s women had started attaining top critical positions within the political fields, banking, medicine, public services, law, and other professionals. Most of the country’s middle- and upper-class families usually employ domestic helpers while the poor families have always shared work. The country’s staple food varies from grits, lobsters, fish, conch, bread, potatoes, spiny lobsters, chicken, and imported meats. Other national dishes include rice and peas, macaroni and cheese, cracked conch, steamed and fried fish, potato salad, fried chicken, and conch salad (McCartney, 2014). Guava duff, a mixture of boiled fruits and dough served with a butter sauce, is mostly the standard dessert.

With most of the culture having been adopted form both the Africans, a and European the country supports both forms of formal and informal greeting and goodbyes this embracing both handshakings, hugs at high percentages with only kisses been to mostly either engaged, married individual. The nature of hugs and handshaking, however, tend to vary with formalized greeting and goodbyes being handshakes with rare incidences of hugs, but hugs are mostly embraced among the family members and friends. The country also embraces all forms of communication on culture regarding head nodding, eye contact on communicating, use of hand gestures, physical contacts, and some also demanding personal space (Grube & Storr, 2014). In-office working environment, the culture demands for official and formal dressing during working hours, with employees having the freedom of on critical issues of food consumption may it be traditional foods or drinks or national dishes. They employed across sectors that are guaranteed a tea break and lunch break.

4.0 Marketing Information

Setting a business must always consider the 4Ps of product, place, price, and promotion. Pricing is one of the critical strategies that, as being highly embraced as a competitive strategy, on the other promotions has also been employed as a strategy of retaining and attracting customers. On the primary factor of products, goodies Inc should focus on developing a product name and logos as well as slogans that are national in nature. This is considering out that the Bahamas is a country with different ethnicity grounds composing of the American, Africans, and the Caribbean, hence having the logos, slogans, and names should not be convened to a specific race of culture thus should be inclusive of all citizens. On the other hand, the nature of packing and tastes and benefits should be national and International based considering that the country is a tourism hub, and one of the target markets would be the tourist.

On pricing, Goodies Inc should consider that the county faces a high rate of unemployment; thus, the purchasing power is relatively low, but the high number of tourism and the purchasing behavior of the middle- and high-class earners would guarantee good retrain (Cleare, 2017). However, pricing should be relatively affordable for all, but this can be defined out but setting varying strategy son product packaging, labeling, taste, and features while the quality maintains.

On the place considerations, the Bahamas is a small country most of the population is concentrated in towns hence the company should first consider placing its manufacturing plant in the significant cities such as within the country’s capital city of Nassau which consist of more than half of the total population of 266,100 people.

On promotions, the company should consider having either bi-monthly or annual promotion purposely to attract specific customers. However, to attract large numbers, the company can have an annual promotion covering between mid-December to Mid-April, purposely one of the high spending periods due being the country’s peak tourism season. Besides, the company should develop an effective and efficient communication strategy. On 2Cs, maintaining a good competitive edge, the company should consider locally outsourcing its raw materials, enhance the differentiation, and brand equity. On consumer consideration, the company should enhance the motivation of domestic consumers through promoting cultural foods and supporting local access to raw materials.

5.0 Industry Specific Information

Within the sector manufacturing sector in the production of key products such as chocolate truffles, cherries, milk, and other selection of assorted basic products has been highly dominated by only a few companies with some of the companies such as McArthur’s products being highly competitive in the sector. Besides, the country’s major economic stimulator is experienced within the tourism sector hence making other sectors less competitive, a factor that gives john company a great opportunity to its products not only within the tourism sector but also to the other population. Relative to McArthur’s financial status, Goodies Inc ‘s prominent and stable sales of $950 million sales makes it not only competitive within the company but also sustainable among the customers. On the other hand, different from McArthur, Goodies Inc’s wide experience in management having spread its services within and in foreign countries makes it more favorable to have sustainable and profitable business operations in the Bahamas nevertheless of the current experience economic challenges.

6.0 Recommendations & Conclusion

Regardless of the country’s population, which is less than half a million, with high rates of unemployment and issues experienced within its economic sectors, the food manufacturing sector is a sector that is yet to be widely exploited. Besides the country being a tourism hub for most tourists from across the world, its highly recommendable that Goodies Inc considers setting its services within the country. Different from other countries that tend to have a tight and complicated entry of business having expressed that the country has made the process of starting any businesses relatively easy by merging the key processes of registering for any business license and registering for the value addended tax, besides, the labor market is also relatively flexible