BUSINESS MONDAY

DR. Linda Tesar, this year’s Central Bank of Barbados’ Sixth Distinguished Visiting Fellow, has offered a way forward for the economy to register economic growth while also saving foreign exchange.

Speaking at the 2019 Caribbean Economic Forum at the Central Bank on Thursday night, she noted that one of the things that struck her since coming to Barbados is how dependent the island is on the international market for food.

“It is a small place and you go into the grocery store and almost everything is imported and at very high prices, so I share your interest,” she said while responding to a query from businessman, James Husbands.

“I do not have any particular advice, but I do think that the more some of the food can be grown here and things produced here in a sustainable way” the better it will be for the country, she maintained.

The economist, who is based at the University of Michigan in the United States, informed her audience that the extreme dependence on global
markets for necessities of life makes the economy and the island vulnerable to changes in relative prices and to external shocks.