(Trinidad Express) Economic growth has slowed throughout the Caribbean region, with decreased private sector activity, creating an environment for meagre growth in output, employment and income despite eased monetary policy by central banks, an analysis by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has shown.
Service-based economies like the Bahamas, St Lucia and Jamaica are performing worse than goods-producing economies like Belize, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
In a presentation at ECLAC’s offices in Port of Spain, entitled “The Caribbean in the World Economy- Context and Insights” yesterday, Prof Dillo Alleyne, economics development officer and officer-in-charge of ECLAC’s sub-regional headquarters for the Caribbean, said the issues faced by Caribbean economies were only emphasised by the current global economic crisis, and will persist even when the crisis is over unless fiscal policies are put in place to deal with them.
He said there were two important phenomena impacting on the Caribbean even if the world economy were to right itself: an emerging fiscal crisis due to rising debt, deficits and reduced capacity by governments to undertake countercyclical policy and provide social protection, and intense reliance on primary commodities, with all the fluctuations for demand and volatility of prices.