5.5 per cent target

WITH the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure to be laid in the House of Assembly next week, and the debate on them the following week, interest will be on how far Government has gone about lowering the troubling fiscal deficit.

Finance and Economic Affairs Minister, Christopher Sinckler, said that by the time he presents the Estimates, he hopes to report that the deficit target of 5.5 per cent will be met. His strategy in brining the deficit down has been a mixture of expenditure cuts and increasing revenue.

He said Government agreed that the deficit of eight per cent of GDP at March last year was too high.

“So we introduced additional measures in the 2016 Financial Statement and Budgetary proposals to close the gap…” he reported.

“We may even be able to report a small primary surplus as well,” he said.

At the end of December last year the fiscal deficit was about 7.2 per cent of GDP, having fallen from the eight per cent at the end of March 2016.

The Minister said that despite registering some successes, it is clear that the fiscal deficit and its financing continues to be a major challenge for the Barbados economy, and we must find the most humane and least disruptive ways of further reducing the fiscal deficit. (JB)