BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – MANY will agree with the President of the Caribbean Development Bank, Dr. Warren Smith that economic growth across the Caribbean must be built on several pillars.
No longer can growth strategies be undertaken in isolation but rather through a coherent set of interrelated policies. They are necessary if the island nations of this region are to make a rebound from what has been the under performance by these economies for the most part over the last five to six years.
Currently this region, with the exception of a few countries – Guyana, Suriname, and Haiti – is having severe economic challenges which cannot be solved by either tinkering here and there, or just by hoping that our major trading partners recover enough from their difficulties that there is the trickle-down effect to our benefit.