Stressing the need for a united response to the country’s economic woes, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart today gave the solemn assurance that Government was committed to reducing the fiscal deficit while creating an environment to re-energize engines of growth.
Stuart said Government’s main challenge, however, was finding the right balance in terms of its policy choices.
Speaking at the opening of the Public/Private Sector Consultation at Hilton Barbados, Stuart said the policy mix of austerity measures and stimulus pursued by larger countries was not making Barbados’ task of finding a solution any easier.
He said developments in the United States, Britain and Canada could exert positive or negative impacts on Barbados’ economic performance, and as a result this country was once again forced to find answers to familiar but more difficult economic issues.
“The narrative has not changed,”?he said. “The single most important variant that differentiates the economic recessions that impacted our fair land during the past four decades from the current economic tsunami is the latter’s destructiveness and stubbornness.”
Stuart said, however, that Barbados’ challenges had been intensified by Government’s need to maintain the social safety net amid falling revenues. (RJ)
