Economy seeing signs of growth, says Minister of Finance

This country’s Minister of Finance, Camillo Gonsalves, says the economy today is stronger than it was a year ago, and continues to rebound from the multiple challenges that it faced, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the volcanic eruptions in 2021, and Hurricanes Elsa and Beryl.

Gonsalves was speaking on Sunday, May 25, 2025 on WEFM during the ‘Issue at Hand’ programme where he noted that St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) is seeing definite signs of, not only further economic growth, which is important, but greater development from a strictly numbers standpoint.

The finance and economic development minister noted that as of the end of April, revenues were tracking ahead of what was predicted, with total revenues and grants (to end April), at $292 million.

“We had forecasted a best case, by this point of the year of $289 million so we’re tracking ahead of where we thought we would be.

“And just for reference, we are $292 million this year. At the same point last year, we were at $250 million and the year before that, in 2023, we were at $215 million,” the minister said.

“We’re bringing in more revenue, which is obviously a good thing, and the measures of economic activity, like how much money is coming in at the port, how much money we’re getting in our excise duties on imports and the rest of it, how much money we’re collecting as Value Added Tax. All of those numbers are trending in a direction that suggests to us that economic activity is increasing in St Vincent and the Grenadines,” Gonsalves said.

He noted also that the government is spending, on the capital side, more money than it has spent in the past.

“And that is because, as you would know, we don’t only have a number of major infrastructural projects underway, but we have…a great deal of reconstruction to do, and we’re still doing a great deal of reconstruction in the wake of Hurricane Beryl,” he pointed out.

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