The IMF Has Completed its May Visit to Barbados

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has completed its first reviews of Barbados’ Enhanced Fund Facility (EFF) and Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) arrangement.

At the end of the visit, IMF team lead Pablo Morra issued a statement saying “Barbados continues making good progress in implementing its updated Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) plan. All quantitative targets for end-December 2022 and end-March 2023 under the EFF were met.”

He also revealed that “the IMF team and the Barbadian authorities reached staff-level agreement on the completion of the first reviews under the EFF and RSF arrangements. The agreement is subject to approval by the IMF Executive Board, which is expected to consider the reviews in June. The completion of the reviews will make available SDR 14.175 million (about US$19 million) under the EFF arrangement and SDR 14.175 million (about US$19 million) under the RSF arrangement.”

Commenting on Barbados’ economic performance, Morra confirmed that the island had achieved a primary balance of 2.5 percent of GDP in fiscal year 2022/23 (April 2022 to March 2023) and that it would be targeting a primary balance of 3.5 percent of GDP in the current fiscal year. The primary balance is the difference between Government’s revenue and its non-interest expenditure.

“The authorities remain firmly committed to gradually increasing the primary fiscal surplus and reducing public debt to 60 percent of GDP by FY2035/36, supported by structural reforms. Important steps are being taken to enhance the tax and customs exemption regimes and the public procurement framework, improve tax administration, and advance pension reform. The authorities’ economic reform programme contemplates further steps in state-owned enterprises reforms and improvements in public financial management.”

Read the full statement here.