Aug 2010 Financial News

Budget forthcoming

Aug 23, 2010

BARBADIANS can expect the delivery of the Annual Financial Statements and Budgetary Proposals in the Lower House of Parliament some time after the House resumes its meetings on October 19 of this year.

That assurance was delivered by Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Freundel Stuart, as he delivered the feature address at the ruling Democratic Labour Party’s 55th Annual Conference, which was held at their George Street headquarters yesterday.

Stuart, who has been deputising for the ailing Prime Minister David Thompson for the past few months, indicated that due to the significant global economic challenges which have caused problems for a number of nations, Government will chart the way forward for Barbados after the due consultation with its partners, including the Social Partnership. Timing, he argued, was very important.

“The longer the challenges now facing the world persist, the greater will be the threat to the Government’s ability to respond to the needs and concerns of our households and our businesses. Parliament rose on Tuesday last for its summer recess until October 19, 2010. Thereafter, at a time to be determined by the Government, our response to the effects of these challenges on Barbados will be shared with the country in a Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals. All of this will be preceded by exchanges with the representatives of labour and capital and a full meeting of the Social Partnership, over which either the Prime Minister or I will preside. The Government contemplates no clear or sensible way forward without both the input and co-operation of its partners in the areas of labour and capital,” he stated.

Stuart further added that Government continues to grapple with the economic challenges which have been in existence for some three years now and have moderated in intensity.

“Since September 2007 when the first signs appeared, the world has been going through its worst economic and financial crisis in well-nigh one hundred years. Commentators have up to now been content to call this experience a recession, by which they mean that there has been a falloff in demand for goods and services which has lasted for more than six months,” the acting PM said.

He also made it clear that other major economies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, are still dealing with the economic problems which have been exacerbated by the onset of the recession. This, he added, has made it even more difficult for small, open and vulnerable economies, such as Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean, to cope with the problems which the recession has caused.

“As I have said elsewhere recently, a compound of lax regulation, wild speculation and raw greed in the wealthier countries of the North Atlantic has brought the world to the story pass. As is usually the case, small and vulnerable countries like Barbados are the first to feel the effects of problems to the creation of which they have contributed nothing. Today, to that unfortunate fate, most of the countries of the English-speaking Caribbean have been abandoned,” he noted.

The Acting Prime Minister maintained that given the myriad of economic challenges, Government must remain steadfast in its focus on improving the economy, which he added has done well in the circumstances.

“It is no consolation to us that in the first half of 2010, overall economic growth contracted by 1.0 per cent compared to the same period last year; that unemployment increased to 10.6 per cent over the first quarter which was a slight increase over the 10.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2009; that output in construction continued to contract; and that demand for domestic goods and services remained weak. The most casual acquaintance with Barbadian economic re-ality will reveal that the Government has always been the largest procurer of goods and services in this society. If internal demand for these goods and services is to be maintained, that will depend to a large extent on what Government does, although, given the sensitivity of our foreign reserve situation, the Government must act with the utmost caution and circumspection,” he stated. (DB)


Source:
Barbados Advocate
Monday August 23, 2010

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