IMF mission lauds Barbados’ progress

(Barbados Nation) Barbados is in line to receive another US$90 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has given Government’s economic reform programme a passing grade. An IMF staff delegation, which on Friday ended a five-day virtual mission with Barbados, also recommended to the institution’s board that its Extended Fund Facility (EFF) be topped up with US$66 million. This was contained in an end-of-mission statement issued by IMF Barbados team leader Bert van Selm.

He said discussions were held on Government’s implementation of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) plan, supported by the IMF’s EFF. This week’s talks were the fourth review of Barbados agreement with the IMF, which was reached in October 2018, and van Selm said while there was staff-level agreement with Government, it was now up to the IMF’s Executive Board to sign off on the recommendations next month.