Government and the International Monetary Fund have reached a staff level agreement in the first economic review of the country’s second Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme from the Washington-based fund.
Additionally, the country has been adjudged to be well on course with the objectives of the funding under the IMF’s newly established Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST).
Speaking at a press conference held at Government headquarters earlier today, head of the IMF’s Mission to Barbados, Pablo Morra, said that Barbados continues to tick all of the boxes as it relates to the objectives under the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT 2.0) programme.
“We just completed our mission for our first review of the Extended Fund Facility and the Resilience and Sustainability arrangement that were approved by our board in December of last year. I am very happy to report that after very productive discussions with the authorities, we have reached a staff level agreement to complete the first review for both arrangements.
“This is going to go to our executive board expected in June and that would make available to Barbados the corresponding amount for first review of the arrangement. We are happy to see that the economy is recovering strongly after all of the series of shocks that it suffered in the past few years,” Marro said.
Once the staff agreement is approved by the IMF’s executive board, it would release US$39 million to Barbados, $19.5 million under the EFF and the same amount under the RST.
The IMF team also expressed happiness with the country’s economic outlook for the year while praising the Mia Amor Mottley administration for sticking to the parameters of the programme.
“We saw that the GDP has grown for several quarters and the outlook for the year is strong with the expansion of the economy. We also see that the reserves are at good levels and the Budget this year is in line with the targets set under the BERT programme. We are happy to see that the authorities continue to implement the BERT programme and they continue to implement their ambitious strategy to build resilience to climate change, with a number of actions for adaptation,” Marro said. (CM)