All Caribbean governments are faced with a conundrum: how to stimulate growth at a time when they know they have little option but to cut public expenditure, reduce their indebtedness and introduce tough austerity measures.
To try to encourage a debate on the most effective policy responses, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently organised a meeting in Trinidad that brought together prime ministers, ministers, central bank governors and senior figures from around the region. Their focus was on the nature of the reforms needed to return the region to growth.
Reading the conference papers – most of which are available online from the IMF – it is clear that there was a consensus that real economic recovery in small states such as those in the Caribbean will mainly depend on two primary forces: the global impetus that will come from renewed growth in emerging economies like China, Brazil and India; and a return to prosperity in the region’s main tourism feeder markets of Europe and North America.
Even then, there was a sense that the Caribbean’s painfully slow economic recovery could be harmed by surging food prices, the continuing crisis in the Eurozone, and the global economic shock that
