Government announces new fiscal measures to help boost local economy

NASSAU, Bahamas, CMC – The Bahamas government has announced a series of fiscal measures it hopes will turn around an economy that recorded slight growth last year but below the nearly three per cent figure that had been projected.
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Perry Christie, presenting the 2013/14 “Budget Communication” to Parliament late Wednesday, said the prospects for the Bahamian economy in both 2013 and 2014 “remain unchanged from the projections presented in both last year’s Budget Communication and the Mid-Year Budget Statement.
“The IMF (International Monetary Fund) continues to forecast that our economy will expand by 2.7 per cent in real terms this year, followed by 2.5 per cent next year,” he said, noting that last year, the economy grew by economy grew by 1.8 per cent in real terms in line with the 1.7 per cent growth registered in 2011, but below the 2.5 per cent rate projected in the 2012/13 budget.