Participants in this year’s Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation’s (BEF) $20 Challenge are expected to face a steeper climb in starting and operating a successful business.With this in mind, Andrea Burgess, Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Export Barbados (BIDC), is urging participants to be realistic, innovative and creative, as they take part in the annual competition over the coming months and at a time of rising inflation.In spite of the economic conditions, officials of the $20 Challenge have indicated that there were no immediate plans to adjust the amount of money being loaned to the secondary school students in the challenge.The competition, which will run until January next year, will see participating individuals and groups given $20 as seed capital, which must be returned at the end of the competition period.“According to the Central Bank of Barbados, ten years ago in 2012, when this challenge started, national prices were 57.6 per cent lower than they are today. This means that goods and services that you would have paid $20 for in 2012, now cost $31.34,” Burgess told Thursday’s official launching ceremony of this year’s competition at the Sagicor School of Business and Management.
