The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is predicting economic growth of 6.25% for Grenada in 2021.
The projection is contained in the latest IMF Country Report on Grenada, issued after the IMF Executive Board recently approved the disbursement of US$22.4 million for Grenada under the Rapid Credit Facility, to help the country deal with the economic impact of Covid-19. In its report, the IMF noted that Grenada’s economy “enjoyed a favourable multi-year macroeconomic performance prior to the Covid-19 outbreak” with growth averaging “almost 5% in 2014-19, well above the 20-year historical average of 2¾%”.
The report identified tourism, construction and agriculture as the sectors that supported this growth and it acknowledged that prior to the pandemic, “Grenada’s key macro-economic indicators were expected to remain broadly at 2019 levels.” While revised projections suggest a sharp decline in growth given the considerable impact on tourism, the IMF said, “the projections assume a modest recovery beginning in Q4 2020 leading to a perceptible rebound in 2021, when the economy is projected to grow by about 6¼%”. The IMF report also noted that “given the strong prior fiscal position, the government financing situation looks manageable if the fiscal liquidity is well-protected and extreme shock scenarios do not materialise”.
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr the Right Honourable Keith Mitchell has welcomed the IMF projections saying, “it is reflective of the level of confidence in Grenada’s economy and the country’s future, based both on government’s management of the economy and the level of economic activity that is expected, primarily in the construction sector with several major public and private sector investments underway, as we re-open that sector for activities.”
Office of the Prime Minister
While it should be part of our code to not respond to this Chen character, whether he/she is real or unreal, let me reiterate what this Chen character should/must know in case he/she forgot.
It seems that because Chen and people were able to hoodwink whomever it is that allowed them to enter this island, they believe that Native Grenadians see them as our next great saviour.
What Chen and his people need to understand is that they cannot and will never become Native Grenadian by uttering the same inane, ridiculous comments week after week.
To become a Native Grenadian, Chen and his people have to be born again and baptized in the pain, agony, mistreatment, contempt, and more that peoples all over the world have inflicted on us and our cousins elsewhere. And maybe then Chen and his people will have sincere appreciation for the humanity that Indigenous Grenadians and their cousins would-wide have always and continue to extent to people who appear to have malicious intent for us.
This fixation on “Broken English” versus “Proper English”, whatever that is relatively speaking, as the panacea or main factor involved in building and running a hotel or any project is just vapid, insipid nonsense. It shows that the people who let this Chen character and his people on the island may be out of their minds.
If Chen and his people, who arrived yesterday, believe that Indigenous Grenadians should own and control no resources on this island where our ancestors arrived in chains, maybe Chen and his people should extent the same courtesy to Native Chinese People when so called investors touch down in China. It would be even better if Chen and his people practice the Doctrine of Equal Exchange and given Native Grenadians free land and infrastructure contracts in China similar to what they have gotten here. Until then, Chen and people can take the same route they took to enter Grenada to leave as fast as possible.
When you build your own hotels and hire your own people, most of whom speak broken English and lack the organizing skills and social graces foreigners expect, how many tourists will pay for what you are selling?
A lot of tourists just won’t accept unfamiliar habits and behaviour. You want to compete in the global tourist industry, you better have what it takes. That’s why you need foreign investors and international brands.
Everywhere in the world is predicting a recession except Grenada according to IMF . What a contoversy.
This IMF predication is music for fools and to make Native Grenadian feel that their condition is improving or will improve. Whether there is predicted growth or no growth, we are still going backwards because our little island is being encouraged to take on more and more debt that we will never be able to pay back.
This is compounded by the fact that we, Native Grenadians, don’t own or control anything of consequence on this island, and the little that we have in terms of land our politicians are begging people around the world to come and take it from us under the disguise of investment.
If we are very serious about tourism, we will build our own hotels and hire our own people. After all, when these fly-by-night, so called investors come here, our trade men are the ones building the hotels anyway.
So why can’t we not invest our own funds and give ourselves concessions to build hotels that will trulbenefit us? It only after we do this, we will truly benefit from tourism and pay off the debt our politicians piling up for us and our future generations. Right now we, Indigenous Grenadians, don’t even know how much debt these politicians put us in!
Come on IMF, are you serious!!…what have we got to export,? And Tourism almost non existent…