BASSETERRE ST. KITTS (October 14, 2009) -- Federal Minister of Finance, International Trade, Industry, Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Dr the Hon Timothy Harris has said that the IMF/World Bank Group Annual Meetings recently concluded in Istanbul, Turkey were highly successful and productive.
The World Bank group and IMF concluded their annual meetings in Turkey on the October 07, 2009. According to Dr Harris who was in attendance, the meetings were focused on the global economic crisis.
“The Caribbean delegations felt that the leadership of the Bretton Wood Institutions seems sufficiently concerned about our issues to put them on the agenda and to work to find solutions to our problems,” observed Dr Harris.
Discussing the main concerns of the Caribbean region, Dr Harris noted that the matter of the region’s heavy indebtedness being high on the agenda, they collectively approached the IMF and World Bank to put their collective heads together to help the region drastically reduce its debts and put the region on a path of sustainability.
“We were concerned about the G20 position on international financial centres and in particular the imposition of standards, the attainment of which posed onerous challenges on our limited technical and financial resources and more significantly these standards undermine the growth and development of our financial sectors,” he commented.
“We postulated the need for a new policy framework to assist countries with high development index but which are highly encumbered by debt. Caribbean countries are uniquely in this category. Issues in terms of incorporating our vulnerability indices in determining accessibility to concessional financing are particularly germaine here. We also discussed broadly how we can increase resources available to developing countries.”
Dr Harris noted that the World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick has decided to establish a technical team involving officers of the Bank and the Caribbean coordinated by Barbados to work out a position to take to the next G20 Summit on the matter of the international financial centres.
Further, President Zoellick will also follow up on the articulation of policy framework for Caribbean countries. In this regard, reported Dr Harris, President Zoellick would seek to meet with CARICOM Heads and Ministers of Finance either at the next meeting of Heads or early in 2010 to advance these and other matters.
World Bank is also pursuing measures to reduce cost of remittance flows to develop countries to 5% in five years.
While in Turkey, Minister Harris and Prime Minister Stephenson King of St. Lucia attended the Caribbean Turkey Forum in Istanbul and participated in the official programme delivering inspiring remarks on the importance of Caribbean and Turkey cooperation. Governor of ECCB, Sir Dwight Venner and Dr Len Ishmael of the OECS Secretariat also addressed the Opening Ceremony.
