{"id":28321,"date":"2012-11-20T07:55:10","date_gmt":"2012-11-20T12:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=28321"},"modified":"2012-11-20T07:55:48","modified_gmt":"2012-11-20T12:55:48","slug":"bahamian-xenophobia-hurting-business-rank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/11\/bahamian-xenophobia-hurting-business-rank","title":{"rendered":"Bahamian Xenophobia Hurting Business Rank"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_23906\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23906\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23906\" title=\"dionisio\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/dionisio.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/dionisio.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/dionisio-150x112.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-23906\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dionisio D\u2019Aguilar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The \u201cxenophobic\u201d attitude of many Bahamians towards foreign investors is hurting this nation\u2019s Ease of Doing Business ranking, a well-known businessman arguing that the Government needed to tackle \u201cthe bureaucracy that sits below them\u201d as a national priority.<\/p>\n<p>Dionisio D\u2019Aguilar said it was \u201cno surprise\u201d that the Bahamas continued to slip annually in the World Bank\u2019s report, given the country\u2019s often-paradoxical attitude towards foreign direct investment, combined with what he described as a \u201ccrazy\u201d Know Your Customer (KYC) regime and \u201cantiquated banking system\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Bahamas slipped another six spots to 77th place in the World Bank\u2019s 2013 Ease of Doing Business rankings, and Mr D\u2019Aguilar said: \u201cTwo things concern me about that.<\/p>\n<p>Mr D\u2019Aguilar then told Tribune Business: \u201cOne of the reasons why this is happening is we are a xenophobic people. While we want foreigners to come to purchase land to invest, we don\u2019t treat them correctly when they arrive. When they run into that bureaucarcy, it\u2019s most off-putting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Identifying obtaining residence and work permits from the Immigration Department as a major headache for foreign investors and their executives, the former Chamber of Commerce president said: \u201cPeople wait for months and months to hear from Immigration.<\/p>\n<p>Mr D\u2019Aguilar then turned his icy gaze to the Bahamian banking system. \u201cThe KYC rules we have in this country are absolutely crazy,\u201d he told Tribune Business. \u201cWe have swung the pendulum too far to the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ease of Doing Business in the Bahamas is being hampered by the xenophobic attitude that many Bahamians have towards foreign investors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[153,312],"class_list":["post-28321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-business-2","tag-invest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}