Barbados Foresees Protracted Recovery

by Phillip Morton, Investors Offshore.com

22 December 2009

In an address to the media, Barbados’s Prime Minister David Thompson said the territory has adapted well to the global economic crisis, but has warned of a protracted recovery, with its resurgence expected to lag behind major economic powers.

"Obviously 2009 has been a tough year," said Thompson. "2010, based on all the forecasts, should be the year in which there will be a reversal of that trend, but obviously it depends very much on what is happening in the United States of America and Europe, in particular, and of particular importance to Barbados, Canada.”

"2010 is the year in which we expect growth to resume, and hopefully for the tourist season," he continued. "The first half of 2010 will be tough. There are no two ways about it, because it is not expected that growth will resume internationally, [or] robustly enough to impact on us in the Caribbean immediately.”

Thompson said that the island would be heavily affected by tourism levels in early 2010, and expressed his hope that they would pick up in the latter part of 2010. He explained that the government would have to manage resources tightly in the recessionary period in order to prosper when the global economy recovers.

Concluding, Thompson said that Barbados had coped “reasonably well in the circumstances,” noting that it had outperformed many other nations during the period, and expressed optimism for a return to growth and prosperity.

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