Guyana’s economy will remain resilient against the effects of COVID-19, maintaining its growth trajectory as the petroleum sector ‘picks up steam’, the World Bank has said. Guyana grew at an extraordinary rate of 43.5% in 2020, having completed a year of oil production. The positive spill-over ef...

The Bahamas is targeting a $400m increase in annual passenger spending after data revealed more than 40% spent less than $50 in Nassau pre-COVID, thereby seeking to increase expenditure to $100 per head. According to the Ministry of Tourism in The Bahamas, data for 2019, the last full year prior ...

Fitch Ratings Agency, has affirmed Jamaica’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at ‘B+’ with the outlook remaining stable. The Stable Outlook is supported by the expectation that the public debt level will return to a firm downward path post-pandemic, which is underpinned by p...

Jamaica’s Finance and the Public Service Minister, Dr Nigel Clarke, says the island opened the 2020/21 fiscal year with cash reserves of approximately $90 billion, or more than 4% of GDP. Clarke attributed this was to the policy of amassing the country’s cash reserves to pay down debt. This resul...

Outstanding banks loans in Jamaica hit a new record of $1 trillion at the end of 2020, but non-performing loans (NPL) loans grew by more than 40%. Total loans across the banking system increased by 9%, from $915 billion to just over $1.03 trillion at the end of December, but grew by 17% in 2019. ...

The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is reporting that the economies of its 19 Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) contracted by 12.8% on average in 2020 but is projecting an average GDP growth of 3.8% in 2021. According to the Bank in 2020, the majority of BMCs registered double-digit declines in ...

Over a quarter of businesses in the Caribbean have not been able to meet their digitisation goals. This was revealed by PricewaterhouseCoopers in its Caribbean Digital Readiness Survey 2021. In the survey, 42% of respondents believed they were on target to meet their goals while 28% said they wer...

Jamaica’s net remittance flows totalled $220.9 million as at November 2020 reflecting an increase of 25.7% or US$45.2 million over November 2019. This increase resulted from a rise in gross remittance inflows of 18.7% or US$37.5 million aided by a decrease of 32% or US$7.7 million in outflows. Ba...

This week’s CARICOM BUSINESS Newsletter features some of the economic fall out as the Region continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic. This edition touches on developments in Barbados, Jamaica, the Bahamas and St. Vincent and the Grenadines,  as well as the European Union’s continuing...

The Board of Governors of the CDB has elected Hyginus “Gene” Leon to serve as the next President of the multilateral institution. Leon’s appointment will become effective on May 1, 2021. He will succeed W. Warren Smith. Leon has over 30 years of experience in economic development and has directed...