Business
Debt mounts in major Caribbean countries
Barbados and some of her Caribbean neighbors have been saddled with huge debt, a debt that is sapping government revenues and retarding economic and social expansion.
According to the Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency, the debt accumulated by Barbados, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Grenada and Belize since the turn of the 21st century has skyrocketed.
The financial situation has gotten much worse in the wake of the global financial crisis that began four years ago. Some of those nations, Jamaica, Belize and Grenada, have even restructured their debt without “reducing the principal” while pushing the burden to a higher level today than in 2001. The upshot: almost every Caribbean state, Barbados among them, has seen its credit rating downgraded by the credit rating agency.
(More: A Stellar Record of Failure: The IMF and Jamaica)
The economic recession in 2008-2009 was severe and despite tepid recovery, the economic weakness has lasted longer than many policymakers and societies expected.