Business
Reducing fiscal deficit major challenge facing Barbados economy – Prime Minister Stuart
It said that the forecasts for the rest of the economy are no better, with overall GDP expected to be virtually flat.
But Stuart said his administration is committed to pursuing a strategy that will systematically reduce the fiscal deficit, and foster economic growth and innovation.
He pledged that government would work “hand in hand with the leadership in industry, labor and civil society, to create an enabling environment that re-energizes the engines of growth and innovation” in the economy, and thus enhance the quality of life of Barbadians.
However, he warned that the country needed to be more competitive, more productive and committed to a much higher quality of service, stressing that this could not be achieved overnight, but would require that all concerned worked “assiduously to achieve personal and national goals”.
“We must eschew drifting into a community more concerned with highlighting what is wrong than with taking the steps necessary to put things right…Let us aim for creativity, not commonplaces; let us aim for innovation, not limitation. This is not a time for division and hollow posturing. If we work together, we will achieve and succeed together.”
Stuart outlined a number of economic realities confronting the island, adding real economic growth had in fact “continued to be at worst elusive and at best anemic”.
He said the government revenues had been challenged as a result of the economic decline, as this had impacted on the earning and spending capacities of all sectors.
