Two days after Barbados’ triple notch downgrade by Moody’s Investor’s Service, it was confirmed yesterday that an International Monetary Fund (IMF) monitoring team was here conducting meetings with Government and business leaders.
Yesterday the IMF team, headed by its deputy division chief for the Western Hemisphere, Nicole Laframboise, met with heads of the private sector organisations at the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s headquarters at Dalkeith, St Michael.
That meeting began just after 8 a.m. and finished around 9:45 to allow the team to go to meet with officials at the Central Bank for 10 a.m. They met with bankers on Tuesday and are set to have talks with Ministry of Finance officials between today and tomorrow.
Alex MacDonald, chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Agency, confirmed he attended the meeting, but would only say “the talks were wide ranging and informative on both sides”.
However, sources within the meeting said the IMF told them that given where the economy was they wanted to have a more active engagement and more active surveillance. Therefore, though they normally came in October to prepare for their annual Article 4 report, they would be visiting more often to get direct feedback on Barbados’ fiscal and economic strategy, as well as to hear from stakeholders.
