Barbados not losing sight of its long-term goals amidst COVID-19
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment said that Barbados is not losing sight of its long-term transformation goals amidst the current COVID-19 pandemic
During an online panel discussion, Marsha Caddle, Minister of Economic Affairs and Investment noted the COVID-19 crisis highlighted that global economic structures needed to be revised.
“This is something that really calls for a revisioning of our global economic structures and a revisioning of our global financial architecture; how it responds, how we classify countries and what we understand by vulnerability and how shocks affect different kinds of countries…. This is not like the 2008 financial crisis, which was really about demand, [or rather] a demand shock; this is really about a supply shock like 9/11.”
The minister added that it is important to have a long-term recovery plan and not merely short-term solutions.
“This is the prime opportunity to focus on those long-time transformation goals. So, I want to caution while we focus on short term relief and short-term measures, it would be a mistake to lose sight of what the long terms goals are and the long-term macro-planning. It is important to understand that where we have started from, our baseline, has implications for the policy space that is available, it has implications for the fiscal space and its implications then for the international financial response required.”
Caddle pointed out that Barbados successfully completed an external debt-restructuring programme and lowered its debt to GDP from 175% to 118%.
She further emphasised that the fallout from COVID-19 affects all high, middle and low-income countries “because in many ways it has reset our baseline to zero”.
Barbados’ long-term COVID-19 measures
The Economic Affairs Minister said that some of the measures that the Government of Barbados were looking at included establishing the following:
- Green Energy Fund to assist hotels with refurbishment and upgrades during this period,
- Barbados Asset Management Company to help citizens to build their assets and create buffers for themselves, and
- Homes for all programme.
Noting that while some may not refer to these initiatives as “stimulus”, Caddle explained that the government see these ventures as long-term investments which should help with recovering from the crisis.
She highlighted this was a time to look at new investments and models which would contribute to growth, that are necessary for the island’s long-term trajectory for transformation.
In other news:
Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo said that Guyana can help sustain food security in the Caribbean.