The Barbadian Ambassador to China Chelston Brathwaite Photo: Courtesy of Chelston Brathwaite

Barbados, an English-speaking eastern Caribbean country, is one of the gems of the region. The country is well known for its food, culture, beauty, music and musicians, including Rihanna. On November 24, the Barbados Embassy to China celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence from the British, which falls on November 30.

As the Barbadian Ambassador to China Chelston Brathwaite (Brathwaite) prepared to celebrate the momentous occasion in China, he sat down with the Global Times (GT) to discuss the nation's 39 years of cooperation with China after gaining independence.

GT: Barbados started bilateral agreements with China 39 years ago. What are some of the important agreements between the two governments?

Brathwaite: Eleven years after independence, the then Prime Minister of Barbados Errol Barrow established diplomatic relations with China in 1977. In the 1980s Barbados established a double taxation treaty and a business treaty with China which facilitated cooperation in business. It especially benefits people who were interested in doing business with Barbados from China or interested in investing in China from Barbados because they would be taxed only in one jurisdiction. Individuals and companies will find it convenient to establish businesses in Barbados because of a lower taxation jurisdiction, normally at about two percent, which allows them to invest in Barbados or invest in third countries using Barbados as an investment center.

GT: Barbados established an embassy in China in 2010. The first ambassador to China was former Prime Minister Lloyd Erskine Sandiford, and you took over in 2014. What are some of the developments you hope to bring about?

Brathwaite: We saw the need to build a greater relationship with China based on three things. The first area is education. The second area is culture, and the third area, which we are still exploring is tourism. Tourism is very important to my country. It contributes almost 60 percent of our foreign exchange receipt and provides almost 12 percent of the gross domestic product. Consequently, it is an area that we are exploring.

Education has become very important and a very significant number of Barbadians have come to study in China on scholarships. This is so because we believe China offers some opportunities in some specific fields that we believe our university at Cavehill is not particularly advanced in. For example, things like architecture, information engineering technology and robotics.

Recently the University of the West Indies, Cavehill Campus in Barbados signed an agreement with The Global Institute of Software Technology in Suzhou to train software engineers through a joint program in which students are going to spend two years in Barbados studying the basic elements of engineering, physics and mathematics and then spend two years in China working on software development. Hopefully, after that period they will be able to have an internship here in China.

GT: This year was named the year of collaboration between China, Latin America and the Caribbean.How important do you think cultural exchanges are in people-to-people communication?

Brathwaite: We were very proactive in participating in the year of cultural exchange between China and Latin America and the Caribbean. We participated in four activities, a Caribbean music festival, a Caribbean film festival, a Caribbean food festival and a Caribbean art exhibition. In all of these events, we were able to showcase some of Barbados' talent, especially with food. We were able to bring two chefs from Barbados who prepared Bajan food, which was a part of the food festival, and the food was well received. At the music festival, we had the Chinese dancing to our music, and one of the things I found out is that a lot of Chinese know about Rihanna as a singer from Barbados. The photography exhibition and the film festival were also very well received. I think these showcases offer a new awareness of where the Caribbean is, who we are, what we do, and what our culture is like, which helps in people-to-people communication.

GT: What would you want the Chinese to know about Barbados?

Brathwaite: We promote Barbados as a place of rest and relaxation, a place of tranquility with blue skies and beautiful beaches. That is something that has value in the context of people who are in a congested urban environment. It is why tourism is so important, and it is an area that we will be working on in the future to attract Chinese tourists.