Business
IMF forecasts strong growth for the Caribbean
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says the Caribbean and African countries dubber “low-income countries” are among the fastest-growing economies in the world, but warn that many remain vulnerable to shocks and spill-overs from advanced and emerging markets.
“Low-income countries have worked to develop institutional capacity and build fiscal buffers that they were able to use during the crisis, and now, all the hard work has paid off,” said IMF Deputy Managing Director Min Zhu told an IMF seminar. But he said these economies should take this opportunity to shore up their resilience to potential new shocks if they hope to sustain their current growth momentum.
In the months leading up to the Spring Meetings, the Washington-based financial institution said it had stepped up its work on low-income countries, publishing a comprehensive review of its concessional lending instruments, as well as new research on growth prospects for economies in this category.
It has been noted that the said low-income countries (in the Caribbean and Africa) are experiencing strong expansion that is based on relatively solid fundamentals.
Speaking at the seminar, “Low-Income Countries in the Global Economic Recovery: Strengths, Vulnerabilities, and the Role of the IMF,” Hugh Bredenkamp, the deputy director of the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department, pointed to clear signs that growth in low-income countries was firmly rooted.
Low-income countries are relying less on domestic demand and more on external demand as the world starts to recover from the recent crisis. Inflation is coming down steadily in the Caribbean and despite occasional spikes related to commodity price shocks.
“All this suggests that low-income countries’ currently strong economic performance has strong foundations, and from that perspective, we see good chances of it being sustained over the medium term,”.
