Economy in best shape since independence – Luke Browne

Government Senator Luke Browne is rebutting opposition claims that the economy may be challenged to effectively handle the post flood recovery programme, noting that the fundamentals of the economy are in order.{{more}}

Browne in his contribution to this week’s debate on the supplementary estimates charged that in fact St Vincent and the Grenadines have had the highest level of economic growth for the independent OECS countries and its economy was in its best shape since independence.

He was responding to the opposition leader’s position that the government’s floood rehabilitation programme has to be looked at in the context of the economy as it stands now and continues to perform. Eustace noted the 2012 downgrading of the country’s economy by the Moody rating agency from B1 to B2, and said we have to focus, at the end of the recovery exercise, on where we would be and what our standard of living would be.

Browne also disagreed with the opposition claim that the recovery effort will put an additional strain on economic performance, noting that 30 million dollars of the money is the estimates is in grants; another 30 million is from revenue including country donations, while the ten million in external loans is at concessionary rates.

He also took issue with the arguments about capacity constraints, arguing that the Prime Minister made provisions for getting foreign experts, but that when the projects are looked at individually, many are already being implemented without capacity constraints.