Confident of growth
Government’s senior technical advisor, Dr. Kevin Greenidge, says he is confident that Barbados can achieve growth this year once it stays on the current path.
Delivering the feature address at the first business luncheon for the year of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry, held under the theme ‘Envisioning 2020: The Path Towards a New Decade’, Greenidge said this will include Government sticking to the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) plan and the private sector playing its part in respect of investment.
He told those gathered that when Government embarked on the BERT programme, its main two missions were to protect the dollar and stabilising the economy, and the second mission was to transform Barbados to be a country of world class excellence. He said this was not going to be an easy task, as under the former government, economic growth was non-existent, noting that at the time of the Mottley Administration assuming office, debt had skyrocketed to 176 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).
The technical advisor indicated that the situation has improved, with the debt dropping to 119.5 per cent at the end of 2019. This, he said, has been the result of the efforts made to restructure the debt at both the domestic and external levels. He added that at the end of fiscal year 2018/19, government ran a primary balance of 3.5 per cent GDP.
“Our programme is hinged on, anchored on a debt trajectory that converts to 60 per cent by 2033; underlying that is a primary surplus balance that must get us there. We are committed to getting six per cent for a few years and then we would taper off accordingly. This year so far, the year ending in December, we are 4.8, 4.9 per cent of GDP. Of course that means a lot of sacrifices, a lot of fixing the fiscal inefficiencies, tightening up here and there,” he stressed.
Greenidge said government has attained fiscal sustainability, such that the finances are now in order and there is a commitment to keeping that way. His comments came as he said that foreign exchange reserves are also on the rise, standing right now over $1.4 billion, which equates to about 18.7 weeks of import cover. Moreover, he said, Government has also been able to reduce its arrears in central government from $1.2 billion 18 months ago to $167 million today.
(JRT)