Above: Dominica (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The Invest Dominica Authority is exploring the possibility of establishing a national venture capital fund in the country.

The IDA’s proposed project would augment the government’s current structural reform programme.

The IDA recently led a stakeholders’ forum on the idea, under the theme of “Enabling the Private Sector in Dominica and the Eastern Caribbean: Opportunities for SMEs and Venture Capital Financing.”

“Over the last few years, the Government of Dominica, mindful of the critical importance of access to finance to start-ups, and also to expansion of SMEs, has provided options to ease the access of SMEs to finance,” said Careen Prevost, permanent secretary in Dominica’s Ministry of Employment, Trade, Industry and Diaspora Affairs. “We believe that venture capital feasibility, if successful will complement Government’s efforts to provide additional financing options for entrepreneurs.”

More and more countries in the region have been looking at ways to nurture small businesses.

Dominica’s proposed move after the announcement in 2013 that another Caribbean country, Jamaica, would be launching a new venture capital fund.

That fund, spearheaded by the Development Bank of Jamaica, officially launched in April.