Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation Plan Monitoring Committee (“BERT MC”) Public Report #9

Since its last report, the BERT MC has continued to receive reports from the Government of Barbados (GOB) on its progress through December 2020 towards the targets agreed in the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (“MEFP”) agreed with the IMF within the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility for Barbados (“EFF”).

This report for the period ended December 31, 2020 coincides with the ninth set of targets under the EFF on which the BERT MC now comments.

During the period the IMF executive board completed its fourth review under the EFF agreeing that all performance criteria had been met, all structural benchmarks had been completed, and the Board approved a further US$94 million disbursement including an augmentation of the EFF by an additional US$69 million to address the continuing challenges the Barbados economy faces owing to the global coronavirus pandemic.

Concurrent with its review the IMF executive board agreed with the GOB’s requests for the further modification of performance criteria allowing for a reduced primary surplus target of minus 1 percent of GDP for fiscal year 2020/21 (down from a positive 1 percent revised target agreed at the time of the third review). This change is in recognition of significant revenue losses and the need to support spending on public health and social protection in response to the pandemic. In addition, four new structural benchmarks were introduced, and the due dates for three others were reset due to the impacts of the pandemic on progress.

The BERT Monitoring Committee, an independent sub-committee of the Social Partnership with additional representation from the Domestic Barbados Creditors Group (“BCG”) is primarily responsible for monitoring the progress that the GOB is making in respect of its commitments and targets agreed in the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (“MEFP”) agreed with the IMF within the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility for Barbados (“EFF”).

To view this report, please download it here.

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Date Posted	December 22 2021
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Download Count	254