In 2009, Barbados had a population of 283,000 people and a population growth rate of 0.5%. The economy was driven by the export of commodities such as tourism, light manufacturing and financial services. Barbados was an active member in many international organisations including the United Nations, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Organisation of American States (OAS). Politically, Barbados was a parliamentary democracy with two major political parties: the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) and the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). The then Prime Minister was David Thompson who had been in office since 2008. He had previously served as Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1999 under Prime Minister Owen Arthur. See internetsailors for Barbados in the year of 2011.
Yearbook 2009
Barbados. At the beginning of the year, Barbados allowed an Australian company to look for and possibly extract oil in a disputed sea area near Trinidad and Tobago. The two neighboring countries had previously disputed the right to the area, but in 2006, an international maritime law court decided that the territory belongs to Barbados. However, a new conflict arose when Venezuela claimed that the area was Venezuelan. See ABBREVIATIONFINDER for abbreviation BB which stands for the nation of Barbados.
According to countryaah, Prime Minister David Thompson’s government survived a vote in confidence in March. The vote was held since the opposition accused the government of not satisfactorily managing a serious financial crisis in the country. The crisis arose when the Trinidad-based insurance company Clico went bankrupt. Clico’s collapse, in turn, was a result of the global financial crisis that hit the world during the year.