Politics
Caribbean needs to identify new areas of economic growth
Guyana’s President Donald Ramotar Wednesday called on the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to help the region identify new areas of growth at a time when the Caribbean continues to experience weak growth, elevated fiscal imbalances and heightened risks within the financial market
Addressing the 44th Annual Meeting of the CDB Board of Governors, President Romator said the region’s premier development financial institution must also help in developing the human resource capital in the Caribbean, noting “this role is vital for the development of our region”.
He told delegates that most of the challenges facing regional countries were not of their own doing and as an example, the global economic and financial crisis from 2007 “had impacted heavily on many of the countries of the region”. Ramotar said that in addition to the crisis, many Caribbean countries were not now able to secure loans at concessionary rates as in the past due to their “graduation” by the developed countries, warning “this is a major problem and threatens the social and economic gains of the past.
“We cannot afford a reversal,” he said, insisting that the decision to graduate regional countries to middle income states “as short-sighted because the region needs to build on its gains. Ramotar continued, “It is a tragedy if we regress.” He then added that, “we must work closely not only to overcome these problems…but unite ourselves on the things that so impact us.”
“We have to look at new areas of growth,” he said, adding also there was need to identify new mechanisms to achieve the goals. “In the future, I think the bank should help us to identify new sources of growth,” he said, noting that “our comparative advantage in the past is not as strong as it used to be”.
Ramotar noted area where the region should be involved in, is in the information communication and technology sector “which is impacting on every aspect of life. “We have to use it to help us develop and strengthen our base,” he said, outlining various roles for the CDB in helping the Caribbean achieve economic growth.
He said there was need for greater investment in agriculture, applying more science and technology in developing the sector that should no longer be depicted as a “barefooted man working in the field. Ramotar said that the region’s food import bill was continuing to climb and that one way to combat the situation was to broaden the base of agricultural products “so as to be able to give our region full food security”.
President Ramotar said there was also a role for the CDB in helping the region deal with its high debt which he described as a “millstone around the necks of the region”. Montserrat Premier Reuben Meade told the meeting that there are many policy challenges facing the region and in particular, small open and vulnerable economies.
