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Caribbean Central Bankers to Belize For Monetary Studies Conference
posted (November 8, 2017)
Today, financial regulators and economists from all over the Caribbean were here in Belize for the 49th Annual Monetary Studies Conference.

This forum is the flagship event for the Caribbean Centre for Money and Finance, which was established by the Central Banks of the Caribbean Community. It's an opportunity for the financial regulators from the CARICOM nations come together to discuss shared ideas and research in economics and finance. It also gives these officials an opportunity to examine policies, and how effective they are in tackling the complex challenges in the financial sector.

IT'S being hosted by the Central Bank of Belize and we stopped in this morning to speak with the Financial Secretary, and a representative of the Central Bank:

Azucena Quan-Novelo - Director Research Dept. Central Bank
"This event is an annual monetary studies conference where economists from within the region and outside the region look at monitoring financial issues that are of relevance to the region and so it is a time when you exchange ideas and see how different policies affect countries in different ways and what works, what doesn't work, what is relevant, what isn't relevant. So it is not only a forum for the exchange of ideas, but it is also a forum for training new economists coming up."

Joseph Waight - Financial Secretary
"It brings together the research departments, and all their technical knowledge to try to examine current issues, and come with recommendations to move forward and to overcome the challenges facing the Caribbean especially, the monetary challenges, the fiscal challenges facing the region."

Azucena Quan-Novelo
"We are looking at monetary and fiscal sector issues. We are looking at climate change. We are looking at debt issues. We are looking at financial stability issues, because you know that we are now in a global stage where there is slow growth economically and for small states the adjustment to that can be very difficult, particularly given the debt burdens that the country is facing and the natural disasters that we have to deal with."

"This conference, we are looking at those fiscal issues such as the management of debt. How do you manage debt and yet be able to get growth, because clearly for growth you have to invest in order to grow but sometimes that investment requires net borrowing. There is also the issue of financial sector interconnectedness and how that affects the region."

The conference ends on Friday.

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