On Friday in Bridgetown, Barbados, the Caribbean Development Bank held its annual press conference. 7News was there and as we showed you on Friday's news, the President of the Bank and the Director of Economics commented on the sluggish performance of Belize's slumping economy. Dr. Justin Ram said that the economic slowdown is due in part to the difficulty of doing business in Belize. It's a problem all across the region in the 19 countries which are members of the bank - where the annual World Bank report showed, it's becoming harder to do business in the Caribbean. Belize went down two notches in that survey - which is the trend across the region:..
Dr. Justin Ram Director, Economics - Caribbean Development Bank
"The ability to do business has deteriorated in most BMCs. Doing business in the region continues to be plagued by our economies' lack of competitiveness and, with the exception of Guyana, which moved up 16 places to 124 in the World Bank 2017 Global Doing Business ranking, all other territories lost ground."
"An aggressive and ownership-driven reform agenda puts Jamaica as consistently the best regional performer in the doing business ranking; notwithstanding the slight fallback in ranking in 2017 relative to 2016. Overall, the region's ranking fell three places to 120 in 2017."
And, Ram says when the private sector is having a hard time, it puts public finances under pressure - which is what leads to low economic growth and ballooning public debt - which Belize could be a textbook case for. Here's how he put it:..
Dr. Justin Ram Director, Economics - Caribbean Development Bank
"There is a correlation between adverse doing business conditions and weak economic performances which ultimately leads to a cocktail of fiscal pressures and high debt. The region continues to be characterized as an area of low economic growth and high public debt. More than half of the BMCs are saddled with debt ratios in excess of 60 percent of GDP (the level at which debt becomes a drag on growth)."
"The economic cocktail also extended to foreign currency reserves which were below benchmark levels in some BMCs in 2016. These declined year-on-year to less than the equivalent value of the global benchmark of three months of imports, for example, in Barbados. There were improvements in The Bahamas and Suriname but reserves remained below the three months threshold in these countries as well. In other territories, foreign exchange reserves remained above the threshold though the year-on-year changes were mixed."
Belize's reserves declined substantially in 2016 due to the Ashcroft Alliance payouts, but it remains above the three month threshold - which is better than Bahamas, Barbados, and Surinam whose reserves have all been dangerously low.
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