Central Bank of Barbados Governor Cleviston Haynes delivers the Bank’s review of Barbados’ economic performance in 2020 and takes questions from the media.
2020 Central Bank Economic Review – More Hard Times …
Central Bank of Barbados Governor Cleviston Haynes delivers the Bank’s review of Barbados’ economic performance in 2020 and takes questions from the media.
190 responses to “2020 Central Bank Economic Review – More Hard Times …”
-
Just saying that the commercialization of the Welcome Stamp had a heavy pushed relating to safety for the nomads and safety can be used as a legal argument to retrieve a refund seeing now that circumstances have changed
As Mia said in one of her PR conferences to defend visitors response and their actions ” people want to be satisfied” -
@Hal & @angela cox
The 125% debt to GDP ratio quoted for 2018 is for the end of that year, not May 2018. The debt to GDP ratio at the end of 2017 was about 158%. -
angela cox January 28, 2021 3:05 PM
“…safety can be used as a legal argument to retrieve a refund seeing now that circumstances have changed…”
++++++++++++++
Here are the relative statistics for COVID-19 for Barbados and our major source markets”
USA ———- cases/million Pop. 78,917 — deaths/million Pop. 1,327
UK ———– cases/million Pop. 54,981 — deaths/million Pop. 1,515
Barbados — cases/million Pop. 5,018 — deaths/million Pop. 38So you can clearly see that Barbados is doing at least 10 times better than the USA or UK, and by some measures up to 50 times better. Anyone who brought a court case based on this publicly available data must really like to waste their money.
-
PTL
Words can be translated into legal arguments to give full effect or to sway
The words govt chose were those meant to persuade people living in the outside world during a heightened time of COVID to come to a COVID free environment -
Steupse
-
BU’s favourite economist #marla
https://marladukharan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021-01-Caribbean-Monthly-Report.pdf
-
-
-
RIC
if so many people are not scared of covid / travelling and would bring Barbados tourism back then how do you explain the fall in air travel in the usa?
-
Ric
its ok to say jamaica etc get x amount of flights daily but how many passengers are on board?
also compare the number of flights barbados was receiving before the second lock down ato those before the first lockdown. Your figures may be a bit misleading -
Well the report is what we expected although the 18% sounds a bit optimistic based on all we know. Of course it depends on the formulas used for tabulation.
What I will say is brace for the first quarter of 2021 report. I will state here that this quarter will show the largest comparative percentage drop in economic activity on record. David kindly commit this to BU Hansard please so that I can refer to it in June.
-
A
very smart -
“In an environment where a new way of thinking is required it is hard for many to unfreeze traditional learning.”
@ David
We are in the Aquarian Age with the destiny of humanity being the revelation of truth and the expansion of consciousness, and that some people will experience mental enlightenment in advance of others and therefore be recognised as the new leaders in the world
-
@John A
What is your position regarding the lack of disclosure of unemployment statistics of recent?
-
From Marla D
“As is often the case, it is those who can most afford to hold strain, that are putting pressure on the powers that be to overreach.”
@Blogmaster
I see she is now on the GEL Board. -
@ David.
To be honest that doesn’t bother me too much and I will tell you why. With the hotel sector only barely existing one would expect unemployment to be way up. What i am having a problem with is how in light of a barely noticeable tourist market this year, we could only be down 18% in the economy. In other words if tourism has been decimated and that sector is say conservatively 60% of our economy, then are you saying the other sectors that make up the remaining 40% were in fact not affected or even up?
As i said the real blow will come when the first quarter of the 2021 report comes in.
-
@NO
Good for her. GEL people must have an eye for quality.
-
@John A
Probably what the economists refer to as a lag indicator. What can one say.
-
@ David
That and we have to also factor in that we will lose say $50M in economic activity over the lockdown period too.
-
A
The answer is the same as to why you are saying the 1Q this year will be the worst.
The tourism in Q1 2020 was normal. after q1 the tourism activity usually decline substantially. we had a little pop in dec that may have help a little.i did not have time to review the final report as yet
-
when u add 2001 q1 to 2020 q2,3, and 4, then you will have a full year effect of covid on the economy.
-
2021
-
@john2
You must be having fun watching these Reddit folks play the options into the shorts. -
NO
I do not follow Reddit. i am too busy doing my own, work and BU. just following the markets its crazy on those few stock.
you still should learn options. my total trades for the year so far are up 70+% (i trade but not day trade) -
@Ricardo January 28, 2021 12:28 PM @David I don’t know where you all believe people will not come here if there are many “cases”. You know I am from Canada or I believe I have mentioned it. Nobody gives a crap about cases. People are concerned about deaths and ICU capacity in long term care homes and people over the age of 80+ but this conception that people are scared to go out because of “cases” is pure nonsense. Costco and Walmart are packed in Canada, schools open in all provinces.
Schools in four other Ontario regions will be returning to in-person learning next week, the government confirms.
In a statement released Thursday morning, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said that kids within Ottawa, Middlesex-London, and Southwestern and Eastern Ontario’s public health units will return to the classroom on Monday.
“On the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, with the support of the local Medical Officers of Health, and with the introduction of additional layers of protection, 280,000 students in four public health regions will return to class on Monday, February 1,” Lecce said.
Here is a list of school boards scheduled to reopen on Feb. 1:
• Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario
• Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario
• Conseil scolaire de district catholique de l’Est ontarien
• Conseil scolaire de district catholique du Centre-Est de l’Ontario
• London District Catholic School Board
• Ottawa Catholic District School Board
• Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
• Thames Valley District School Board
• Upper Canada District School Board
According to the province, parents with children in the following school boards should double check with their local public health units about their status:
• Conseil scolaire catholique Providence
• Conseil scolaire Viamonde
Source: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca
Published Thursday, January 28, 2021 11:26AM EST -
Dukharan backs Central Bank’s tech, green energy thrust call – Dukharan backs Central Bank’s tech, green energy thrust call: https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/01/28/dukharan-backs-central-banks-tech-green-energy-thrust-call/
-
Caribbean foreign trade hit a new low – Caribbean foreign trade hit a new low: https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/01/28/caribbean-foreign-trade-hit-a-new-low/
-
I think the AGM is later today, so we’ll hear how MD’s example of ‘pivoting’ has occurred within GEL. What I read, was one big failure in a recent investment, another with hope and turning the bend (cocoa), another still getting going (oil services Guyana) ,continued diversification in their core catering business to allay some of the obvious losses (airlines), and a big chunk of profits coming from food and distribution which “were” their core businesses for years. Tried to grasp their severance costs, well buried, seemed like +/- $30M?
-
GEL in the opinion of the blogmaster took too long to restructure the business. Hopefully the balance sheet is strong enough to withstand the precipitous decline in the airline sector.
-
Hey all looks like the largest 1st world to 3rd world nation is going to bail out Caricom regarding vaccines. By the way government should have offered to pay $10 a dose to Astra or India months ago and these fearful Barbados politicians who want to ruin the economy to “save the life” of a 80 year old with cancer could be sooner out of the hole they are digging for themselves
THE ONLY QUESTION WILL BE HOW MANY OF THE 500K DOSES FOR CARICOM THAT MAY BE COMING WILL COME TO LITTLE OL’ BIM
India has so far exported millions of the domestically-manufactured COVID vaccine to countries in its neighbourhood.“From 20 January 2021 onwards, we have gifted over 55 lakh (5.5 million) doses of vaccines to our neighbouring countries and in our extended neighbourhood – Bhutan (150,000), Maldives (100,000), Nepal (1 million), Bangladesh (2 million), Myanmar (1.5 million), Mauritius (100,000), Seychelles (50,000), Sri Lanka (500,000) and Bahrain (100,000). These supplies are based on requests from these countries”, India’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at his weekly briefing on Thursday.
“Over the next few days, we plan to gift further quantities to Oman (100,000), CARICOM countries (500,000), Nicaragua (200,000) and Pacific Island states (200,000)”, the Indian official informed mediapersons. -
-
I thought this stream was on the central bank report? Or is it also on CoVid? I wonder if @CCC and @MARIPOSA were suspended for vindictive reasons or simply fore posting in the wrong stream.
-
@Hal Austin at 9:58 AM
It is difficult for us with analytical minds to separate the impact of COVID 19 on the economy from a discussion on the CBB report on the economy of Barbados. We should also avoid indulging in hair brain schemes that address tthe short term impact of COVID and ignore the long term impact of the newly emerging international economic order. -
@ David BU
Crises ,including pandemics, result in significant changes. Perhaps we should spend some time focusing on these. Traditional approaches seldom measure up. -
@ Vincent
The efficacy of a new vaccine? Of course we should discuss long CoVid and its likely impact on the Barbados economy.
A short-term report on the economy by the central bank is not the kind of discussion we are looking for, those of us with analytical or hysterical minds. We want a grown up discussion. The central bank is a meaningless ritual.
The report has been so irrelevant many serious people have avoided making a contribution to the discussion. I do not trust the figures, the word play and the mantras about foreign reserves and manufactured unemployment figures. It does not advance our collective knowledge.
Let us take a recent and simple example, when the president announced the lockdown, which she called a pause. Was that not a good time to talk about the new green deal, by banning all non-emergency and public transport vehicles from the roads?
Simple. And that two week break would have had a short impact on the country’s flora and fauna, no doubt. In Europe this was exactly the case. In London, during the first lockdown, everyone noticed the changes, from birdsong, to wild animals including foxes.
Before the lockdown, the emphasis on tourism and propping up the badly managed hotel sector would not have dominated policy as it has.
I am sure you have been reading up on de-growth, one of the fastest growing theories of economics. As to CoVid, how much have you learnt from the flood of press briefings we have been getting? -
@ Ricardo
The population of CARICOM is about 15m, is that correct? If so, what is the ratio of 500000:15000000? I also ask again, although India produces 60 per cent of the world’s generic drugs, it has two CoVid vaccines, has either of them been approved by the WHO?
-
@ Hal Austin at 12 :10 PM
Not much to disagree with in the cited intervention. Hence the suggestion for a shift in approaches to the issues consequential to COVID 19 epidemic. And yes. Early in these discussions I had expressed the view that it was asinine to comment on economic growth and employment when COVID and the following and preceding policy measures slammed these two indicators into reverse gear. -
Most flights cancelled. COVID19 solved. No forex coming in. Time to activate my great STARVE plan.
-
@ David
That one jab claim of 66% J+j made was based on the initial variant remember that. They have not tested against the UK variant or SA variant or at least they have not reported on it.
Also Maderna is now talking about having to develop a booster 3rd dose shot as well for the new variants. The vaccine will not be the saviour many think. It will help but the masks and distancing will have to be the answer now.
-
@John A
Let us agree this virus and its many variants will be with us for the foreseeable future. We have to be smart as we calibrate our way of life to coexist with it.
-
@David
So what you saying then is it might be time to diversify the economy away from tourism dependancy or you feel we should wait another six months and see what happen? Lol
-
Covid 19 may yet force the kind of thinking required to ensure structural changes take place to the economy.
-
Covid 19 may yet force the kind of thinking required to ensure structural changes take place to the economy.
No it won’t.
Not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that this has or will ever happen. Over a year since the emergence of Sars Cov2 and nothing but guess work and hope.
-
@Dullard
You are absolutely right. At the end of the day, whichever government we have, it will still be tourism and the same old rickety thinking that now passes as cutting edge.
There is a fly in the ointment – the Chinese. The future may well be the New Barbadians fighting the Chinese for control. -
@ Dullard
You are absolutely right. All that will happen, once we have conquered CoVid, will be a return to the same old boring orthodoxy, with the same lame people repeating the same old things, and we will treat them as if they were new ideas.
Life will continue on merry old Barbados. A rum and coke, a cheap laugh, a bank loan and all is right in our world. -
@ Hal
I hear you but I genuinely don’t see how goverment can bank on tourism going forward. That would be like building back in a flooded area and hoping the rain don’t fall again.
We must diversify now and stop wasting time reminiscing on the good old days of tourism, when we had 3 jolly Rogers and hundreds of mini mokes on the road. Dem days gone!
-
@ David
The central bank merely regurgitated what the consultant, Dr. Greenidge said forty eight hours before.
It seems that BOSS and BEST have not performed as expected. In short , current economic remedies need to be revisited.
We now have Professor Howard opposing a total shut down. Jeremy Stevens believes the economy will lose nearly three times more than the PM has predicted and this was before promised compensation to small businesses etc.
It is therefore very clear that our resources should now be placed into fighting COVID. The problem here is that the IMF had stated that we would have seen the full benefits of the program by 2032.
With the current set backs , as a result of COVID, we could be looking at another ten years or more being added to 2032. This means that we have no choice other than to start restructuring our education system and economy with haste. At least we would begin to act ourselves out of the crisis rather than try to talk ourselves to higher ground.
Should we fail to act, the economy would be in the doldrums beyond 2045-50 and this would make paupers of the next two or three generations. -
@ William Skinner January 29, 2021 8:10 PM
“Should we fail to act, the economy would be in the doldrums beyond 2045-50 and this would make paupers of the next two or three generations.”
Since it is impossible to diversify our economy we have to throw off ballast: Lower wages to increase competitiveness, lower income tax, cut social welfare and mass emigration.
We have no other choice.
-
About 5 years ago guyana was one of the paupers of the caribbean. By 2050 there will still be some paupers in guyana.
-
Bajans may have to emigrate to guyana to seek better economic oportunity. one caribbean right @ WS
Leave a Reply to John ACancel reply