Barbadians have become fatigue under the the constant negative feedback from armchair pundits and professionals like S&P. Where do we go from here? All the experts have painted a gloomy forecast EXCEPT the minister of finance Chris Sinckler. Who are the citizens to believe Sinckler or all the other who are experts in the field.
The report from S&P explains the mouthing from Dr. Warren Smith who heads the Caribbean Development Bank who has advised government to privatize the Barbados Port Authority and Grantley Adams Airport. The following extract from S&P report confirms what the BU family has been writing about for a few years.
Who will act to stop the rot or it it too late!
However, usable international reserves, which we consider for assessing external liquidity, are even lower; we subtract the monetary base from international reserves because reserve coverage of the monetary base is critical to maintaining confidence in the exchange-rate regime. Barbados’ usable reserves have been negative since 2013, and the position continues to deteriorate, in part because of the central bank’s deficit financing, which has expanded the monetary base. We expect Barbados’ gross external financing needs to be above 200% of current account receipts (CAR) plus usable reserves. We expect narrow net external debt to average around 40% of CAR during 2016-2018. Our external assessment also considers that net external liabilities of a projected 170% of CAR during 2016-2018 are substantially higher than narrow net external debt. Finally, we note that Barbados’ International Investment Position has inconsistencies and is not timely.
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