Laurie Lawrence, Financial Secretary in the Nevis Island Administration, has revealed that the island's economy performed well in 2007, and that the upcoming budget will focus on privatisation initiatives in a bid to accelerate growth in future years. However, he conceded that the government's debt is unlikely to be eradicated in the near future.
During an interview with the Department of Information, ahead of the 2008 Budget Address presentation by the Premier of Nevis and Minister of Finance at the House of Assembly Chambers in Charlestown on Monday, Lawrence revealed that there had been a net positive performance despite changes in policy. These included employment of persons in the social services as well as the issuing of duty free concessions to small business people.
"The economy has been doing quite well. The financial situation is still quite sound. For instance, if you compare up to November of this year with the same period of last year, you would find that we have increased our current revenue by about eight percent and last year during that same period, while we had a deficit of about EC$2.9 million on the current account, this year we actually have a surplus on the current account of EC$5.4 million," he explained.
Lawrence is of the view that the private sector should be the engine of growth
in any economy and suggested that Nevis is no exception. He said that the concessions given
to the private sector had created increased economic activity, which had also
resulted in improved revenue for the government. He announced that the 2008 Budget would focus
on entrepreneurship.
"We are in the process of preparing the budget for 2008 and what we are
now seeing is a greater emphasis on private sector expansion. We have spent
a lot of time over the years putting in place infrastructure and now we need
to go to the next stage because that infrastructure has resulted in significant
debt. We need the private sector now to start to take up the slack to relieve
some of the pressure from government and the budget for next year is going to
focus a lot on private sector expansion," Lawrence stated.
"The budget for next year is going to focus on Private Sector expansion
and trying to nurture entrepreneurship especially amongst local investors and
trying to attract foreign investment," he added.
Another area discussed by Mr. Lawrence was government debt. He explained
that debts had been incurred from capital projects such as infrastructure development,
but noted that once there was a surplus on the current side of the budget, the
country's debt would be manageable.
"We could never really get rid of debt in small islands. The whole idea
of debt is to keep it under control to try to keep it within a certain threshold
and I believe with the private sector expansion we will be in a much better
position to do that," he concluded.
Network Tweets Archive
| Resources | Partners
| Site Map | Links
| Newsletter
Archive | Contact
| RSS Feeds
About | Syndication |
Advertising & Marketing |
Recruitment |
Terms & Conditions |
Privacy
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Tax-News.com
All content provided by BSI Media
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Tax-News.com has taken reasonable care in sourcing and presenting the information contained on this site, but accepts no responsibility for any financial or other loss or damage that may result from its use. In particular, users of the site are advised to take appropriate professional advice before committing themselves to involvement in offshore jurisdictions, offshore trusts or offshore investments.
Write a comment