BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – The major challenge facing the Barbados economy is to reduce the fiscal deficit in order to determine a policy that finds the right balance between fiscal consolidation and economic expansion. Prime Minister Freundel Stuart told a one-day National Consultation on the Economy that the country is experiencing its most severe economic challenges since World War II and that it had managed to stave off the worst effects of the economic and financial crisis which had “bedevilled the world economy over the last five years”. He told the public and private sector officials at the day-long event on Thursday that the island’s economic history showed that when the major trading partners from the developed world were doing well, “we do well, and when they are challenged, we feel the negative impacts of their challenges”.