Bond study

Barbados will entirely abandon plans to raise up to $500 million internationally if current market conditions do not improve.
And while Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler said last week the recently withdrawn bond issue was “part of the Government’s strategy for financing the 2013/14 fiscal deficit”, Central Bank Governor Dr DeLisle Worrell yesterday asserted the plan “was not part of the fiscal strategy”, but simply foreign exchange “insurance” the island could continue to manage without.
The economist made the statement at the Central Bank in response to questions from the media, an exchange in which he said there was no “realistic” chance of economic growth this year, but that the right strategy was in place to start “sustainable” growth from 2015.
“The bond issue was not part of the fiscal strategy. The fiscal adjustment was crafted to achieve the objective of restoring balance in our external accounts, to bring our expenditure down to what we expected to come in in 2012,” Worrell said.