Regional economic transformation on the front burner
By VonDez Phipps
Reporter-SKNVibes.com
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| (L-R) Governor of ECCB, Sir K. Dwight Venner; Dr. Garth Nicholls, Senior Director of Research ECCB; Executive Director CCMF, Dr. DeLisle Worrell |
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – Economists, accountants, bankers and financial advisers from across the region convened yesterday (Nov. 11) at the Sir Cecil Jacobs Auditorium for the opening ceremony of the 40th Annual Monetary Studies Conference.
The event, themed “Economic Transformation in a post-independent Caribbean: What can we learn from Sir Arthur Lewis?” was jointly organized by the Caribbean Centre for Money and Finance (CCMF), the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB).
Attendees are expected to participate in discussions on Bank Regulation, Economic Growth Dynamics, and Foreign Exchange Market among many others over the course of three days.
Governor of the ECCB Sir K. Dwight Venner explained that during the last 40 years of the programme, there has been extensive research on presentations made on the region’s economies in relation to finance, banking, insurance, agriculture and tourism. He informed that the results of the discussions are presented to policy makers in the respective Ministries of Finance and Central Banks to be applied accordingly.
“We must all realise that there is a crisis on food, and energy prices have increased significantly. As a result, we have a feature
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Cross-section of conference
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discussion on agriculture in an effort to ensure food security in the region. We have to be prepared to recommend the necessary steps in addressing such issues.
“Another issue will be scrutinizing our financial system and improving its regulations. We also have to discuss a few other pertinent issues that are not esoteric or fanciful, but that are pragmatic and meant for people to apply in their respective offices.”
Sir Venner noted that the discussions are highly critical and mentioned that the theme is very timely in light of the global financial crises. He stated that the region must realise the power of Sir Arthur Lewis’ basic argument which he opines is comparative to Einstein’s contribution to Science.
“We are taking the fundamentals to apply them as the situations change, which sometimes allows for tweaking. Lewis’ model was adapted by Singapore and Taiwan and look where they are today. In the same way, we in the region must not lose sight of his fundamental concepts.”
